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PayPal Incentivizing People To Provide PYUSD Liquidity On Curve, CRV To The Moon?

In a landmark move, PayPal, the payment processor, has incentivized PYUSD liquidity on Curve Finance, the world’s largest stablecoin decentralized exchange (DEX) by trading volume. 

PayPal Incentivizing PYUSD Liquidity Via Curve

This development, which Stake DAO first captured on January 10, sent shockwaves through the crypto community, with many experts predicting that Curve is on its way to becoming the go-to platform for institutional and corporate trading of on-chain stablecoins.

PayPal incentivizes liquidity via Curve | Source: Stake DAO

PayPal’s decision to incentivize PYUSD liquidity on Curve is a significant step forward for adopting stablecoins and promoting decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols in general. By providing attractive rewards for liquidity providers, PayPal is signaling its commitment to the growth of this rapidly evolving sector.

As part of its incentive program, PayPal has deposited vote incentives worth $132k in PYUSD on Votemarket, a vote incentive platform. These rewards are designed to encourage users to increase their liquidity on Curve. In addition, PayPal will offer direct rewards to liquidity providers distributed in PYUSD, with an APY of 11%.

Observers note that the $66,000 allocated weekly to Votemarket could direct at least $55k in CRV, a governance token on Curve Finance, to the PYUSD-USDC pool.

Institutional Endorsement: Will CRV Rally Above $0.75?

With PayPal’s endorsement, Curve may attract even more liquidity and cement its position as a leader in on-chain stablecoin trading. It is unclear whether other Wall Street heavyweights on the wings are ready to enhance liquidity via Curve or other DeFi protocols. Their involvement will validate Curve and DeFi’s potential, accelerating adoption among institutional investors.

According to DeFiLlama data on January 10, Curve has a total value locked (TVL) of $1.82 billion, with a big chunk of this in Ethereum. The protocol has deployed in Ethereum layer-2s and other Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible platforms, including Arbitrum.

Curve TVL | Source: DeFiLlama

For now, CRV, the native token of Curve, remains under pressure. Looking at the performance in the daily chart, the token is down 30% from recent December peaks, sliding when writing. 

Curve price trending downward on the daily chart | Source: CRVUSDT on Binance, TradingView

From price technical analysis, any break above $0.75 could spark more demand, lifting the token to new 2024 highs. Presently, CRV is trending inside a bear candlestick, signaling general weakness. In the short term, sharp losses below $0.45 might trigger a sell-off. CRV risks dropping to September 2023 lows of around $0.40 in that case.

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Curve Founder Moves Over 23 Million CRV To Binance, Is It Time To Take Profit?

Curve Finance founder Michael Erogov has moved over 23 million CRV, the native governance token of the Curve DAO, to Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, over the last five days, The Data Nerd, on December 27, shows. The founder moved 2.5 million CRV on December 27. This transfer may ruffle investors, raising concerns because it could indicate that Erogov is likely liquidating.

Curve founder moves coins to Binance | Source: The Data Nerd via X

CRV Is Firm, Up 60% In The Last 3 Months

While the founder’s sale of CRV could put downward pressure, the token remains firm and is up roughly 60% from September 2023 lows. The token trades above $0.60 at spot rates, rejecting selling pressure as the daily chart shows.

If bulls press on, it could break above $0.72 to record new 2023 highs. The token is trending higher, rejecting bear attempts amid improving sentiment across the crypto scene. Although Erogov is selling CRV, the market seems to interpret the move as bullish.

Curve price trending upward on the daily chart | Source: CRVUSDT on Binance, TradingView

The spectacular revival of CRV is net bullish for the protocol, suggesting that investors are still confident despite headwinds in early H2 2023 when several Curve pools were exploited due to a Vyper compiler issue.

Curve Founder Sold CRV To Prevent Liquidation Of DeFi Loans

Following the hack in late July 2023, Erogov was forced to liquidate a large chunk to prevent liquidation. On its part, the hack led to over $52 million in crypto assets, including 7.19 million worth of CRV, lost. In the aftermath of the hack, prices crashed.

At the time of this hack, Erogov had over $100 million in DeFi loans backed by 427.5 million CRV as collateral. As CRV prices fell, the health of Egorov’s loans fell in tandem. 

If the value of Egorov’s CRV collateral were to fall further, it could face liquidation. This meant that all protocols from where the founder had borrowed using CRV as collateral would have been forced to sell the token at spot rates to repay the loan. As an automated intervention, the event would have likely caused a cascade, even impacting ordinary holders using CRV as collateral. 

To avoid this and as a form of intervention, Tron founder Justin Sun and multiple other parties, including Jeffrey Huang, made deals to buy CRV from the Curve founder, preventing this liquidation from happening. 

Michael Erogov portfolio | Source: Debank

According to DeBank on December 27, Erogov’s crypto portfolio was north of $136 million. Out of this, the founder owns over $38.9 million of CRV.

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Curve (CRV) Is Up 20%, But This Whale May End The Run

Curve has observed gains of more than 20% in the past week, but this rally may not continue for long, as a whale has made a large move to exchanges.

Curve Has Enjoyed A Sharp Rally Over The Past Week

CRV has gone against the grain recently as it has registered some sharp bullish momentum during a period where the largest coins in the sector, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, have struggled.

Following this latest uptrend, the Curve DAO token’s price has risen above the $0.52 mark. Here is a chart that shows how the cryptocurrency has performed over the past month:

Curve DAO Token Price Chart

In the past week, CRV is up more than 20%, which makes it the best-performing coin among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The outperformance is by quite a distance, too, as many of the assets are in the red for the period. Now, the main question on the minds of the Curve DAO token holders is: can the asset keep up its rally?

In the sharp surge a few days back, the asset had briefly managed to breach the $0.56 level, but the asset had quickly returned to the current level.

Since then, CRV has been moving sideways, suggesting a slowdown in the buying pressure. While the asset has continued to hold at the current levels positive, some investors may be becoming restless, like a certain whale.

CRV Whale Has Made A Sizeable Deposit To Binance Today

According to data from the cryptocurrency transaction tracker service Whale Alert, a large CRV transfer has been spotted on the Ethereum blockchain during the past day.

The transaction in question involved the movement of about 33.3 million CRVs, worth approximately $17.3 million at the time the transfer took place on the network.

Given the large size of the move, it’s likely that a whale entity is behind it. As for what this humongous holder may have wanted to accomplish with the transfer, the full details may reveal some context.

Curve Whale Deposit

It would seem like the sending address in the case of this transaction was an unknown wallet, meaning that it was unattached to any known centralized platform and was likely the whale’s personal, self-custodial wallet.

The destination of the move was the Binance exchange. As one of the main reasons investors use these platforms is for selling-related purposes, there is a chance that the deposit has been made for dumping.

If this is truly the whale losing patience and taking profits at the current price level, then the Curve DAO token may observe at least a temporary pullback in the coming days.

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Curve Founder Michael Egorov Clears Aave Loan, Reduces Total Debt To $42.7 Million

Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance, has settled his loan on the Aave Protocol and cut his total debt to $42.7 million.  Egorov’s DeFi debt profile was revealed on August 1 following a Curve Finance hack that extracted $73.5 million worth of assets across various liquidity pools. 

As expected, the exploit caused a significant decline in the price of CRV, with the Curve governance token losing over 24% of its value in a single day, based on data from CoinMarketCap. This fall in CRV’s market price brought much attention to Egorov’s multiple debt positions. 

According to a report by blockchain research firm Delphi Digital, it was revealed that the Curve Finance founder owed around $100 million across several DeFi protocols. Interestingly, these loans were collateralized by 427.5 million CRV tokens, representing 47% of the entire CRV circulating supply. 

Therefore, the dwindling price of CRV presented a threat of liquidation, which could have been dangerous to the entire DeFi ecosystem. 

Michael Egorov Closes Debt Profile On Aave Protocol

According to a report on Wednesday by the on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain, Micheal Egorov has now cleared his debt on the Aave protocol. 

The report stated that the Curve Founder deposited 68 million CRV, worth $35.5 million, on DeFi lending protocol Silo before proceeding to borrow $10.77 million worth of the stablecoin crvUSD.

After that, Egorov swapped the crvUSD tokens for USDT and finalized the repayment of his debt on the Aave Protocol. 

Egorov’s Current Debt Profile 

Based on more data from Lookonchain, Michael Egorov’s total debt now stands at $42.7 million spread across 4 lending protocols: Fraxlend, Silo, Inverse Finance, and Cream Finance.

In detail, the Curve Finance founder has his largest debt on Silo, where he owes 17.14 million crvUSD backed by 105.8 million CRV, worth $55.3 million. On Fraxlend, Egorov owes 13.08 million FRAX, collateralized by 68.7 million CRV, valued at $35.94 million. 

While on Inverse Finance, Michael Egorov has an outstanding debt of 10 million DOLA, backed by 66.18 million CRV, worth $34.5 million. The Curve Finance founder’s lowest debt can be found on Cream Finance, which comprises 2.02 million USDT and 506,000 USDC, secured by 13 million CRV, valued at $6.8 million. 

Altogether, Egorov’s $42.7 million debt is backed by 253.67 million CRV, worth $132.53 million, representing 28.87% of the total CRV circulating supply. 

CRV trades at $0.516 when writing, with a 2.99% gain on the last day. Meanwhile, the token’s daily trading volume is down by 0.73%, valued at $33.85 million. CRV ranks as the 70th largest cryptocurrency with a market cap value of $452.87 million.

Michael Egorov

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CRV Spikes 22% In 2 Weeks As Whale Withdraws From Binance

CRV, the native currency of Curve Finance, the decentralized exchange focused on stablecoins, is shaking off August’s weakness and printing higher highs when writing on September 22. Trackers reveal that CRV is up 22% in the past two weeks, adding 10% in the last week alone.

Coincidentally, there has been increased activity from a whale moving CRV from Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by client count.

Whale Offloads CRV From Binance To Curve Finance

According to The Data Nerd, a tracker, a whale transferred 1.542 million CRV, worth roughly $684,000, from Binance. Afterward, the whale, only identified as “0x171,” added liquidity to Curve Finance.

Over the last week, the whale has been actively supplying liquidity to Curve Finance, providing 5.36 million CRV worth $2.27 million.

Curve Finance whale moving tokens from Binance| Source: The Data Nerd

CRV is the governance token in CurveDAO, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) behind Curve Finance. Since the exchange is decentralized, CRV holders have voting rights. Moreover, they can receive rewards whenever they supply liquidity to any of Curve Finance’s pools. 

Curve Finance used an automated market maker (AMM) model for the trustless swapping of stablecoins, including DAI, USDT, USDC, and other tokens like ETH and wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC). However, to function optimally, Curve Finance relies on liquidity pools where users can supply liquidity and get a share of fees distributed in CRV. 

The withdrawal of coins from Binance to a non-custodial wallet is a vote of confidence for CRV. The token has been free-falling in Q3 2023. To illustrate, CRV crashed by 32% in August alone. 

CRV price on September 22| Source: CRVUSDT on Binance, TradingView

The draw-down was worsened by the broader contraction in crypto occasioned by waning momentum around the approval of several complex derivatives for Bitcoin and Ethereum. At the same time, regulatory actions, especially from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), significantly impacted sentiment and token prices.

CRV Sold Off After Hack

The free-fall of CRV can be directly pinned to an exploit of multiple Curve Finance liquidity pools in late July 2023. In a re-entrancy attack, a hacker exploited a vulnerability in the older version of a Vyper compiler, draining over $61 million worth of tokens from Curve Finance’s pools.

Through the re-entrancy attack, the hacker could infinitely withdraw deposited tokens from Curve Finance’s pools, resulting in losses.

Curve Finance has since patched the vulnerability, but CRV prices are yet to recover despite the recent pump. Also, its co-founder and CEO, Michael Egorov, had to liquidate a big chunk of CRV that he had used to secure loans on multiple platforms, including Aave. 

List of CRV buyers| Source: Nansen

By early August, Egorov had sold 106 million CRV via over-the-counter (OTC) trades at a discount to multiple entities. Top buyers included Justin Sun, the co-founder of Tron, who bought 2 million CRV, and Jeffrey Huang, who acquired 3.75 million CRV.

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Curve (CRV) Trading Volume Plunge 97% In 2 Months

Trading volumes associated with CRV, the governance token of Curve, a stablecoin decentralized exchange (DEX), is down 97% barely two months after it was hacked in late July 2023. According to Kaiko, CRV’s trading volume in centralized exchanges, especially Binance, where the token is actively traded, fell from nearly $300 million in late July to $7 million as of September 12. 

CRV trading volumes slump Kaiko

Trackers show that CRV is available for trading in multiple centralized and decentralized exchanges, including Binance, Uniswap, and Curve. However, considering the popularity and liquidity standing of Binance, most CRV trading was concentrated on the world’s popular crypto exchange.

To illustrate, Binance’s share of CRV trading is about 20% when writing, while Bitbox is next with a dominance of around 7%. 

Curve’s TVL, Price, And Trading Volumes Collapse

In crypto, a drop in trading volume often indicates waning interest in a digital asset or general caution practiced by investors. With falling volume, the asset’s liquidity takes a hit as traders or investors opt out, even liquidating the coin as they choose stability and refuge. Sometimes, they can adopt a wait-and-see approach, evaluating how the token will react in light of changing market conditions. 

According to DeFiLlama, Curve has a total value locked (TVL) of approximately $2.17 billion, down from $3.25 billion when the protocol was hacked. The decline in TVL and trading volumes comes amid the general lull in the decentralized finance (DeFi) scene.

Curve TVL drops DeFiLlama

The drop in CRV valuation and trading volumes was worsened by the July exploit, which saw the protocol lose over $50 million worth of assets. Although Curve recovered most of those funds, the effect of the exploit called into question the general state of security.

The Hack And Erogov’s CRV Disposal

In the July hack, malicious actors exploited various Curve stablecoin pools using older versions of Vyper, a programming language used to create smart contracts on Ethereum. All Curve’s pools are automated, and this feature allowed hackers to drain multiple pools through a re-entrancy attack. 

CRV reacted to this hack by dropping, falling sharply on July 30 from around $0.74 to $0.48. It has since exceeded halved, crashing to $0.40, a new 2023 low. 

CRV price on September 12 when Curve trading volumes have dropped over 97% in 2 months| Source: CRVUSDT On Binance, TradingView

During this time, Curve’s CEO, Michael Egorov, had to sell CRV holdings he had used to back his loans via over-the-counter (OTC) to entities and individuals such as Justin Sun when prices started falling. Egorov had taken out loans on Aave and Frax Finance secured by CRV. 

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Post-Hack Shenanigans: Curve (CRV) To Launch On TRON Following $2 Million Investment

Curve Finance, a decentralized liquidity pool for stableswap and stablecoin trading, has disclosed a strategic partnership that will see the decentralized exchange (DEX) launch on the TRON network. 

Curve Set To Launch On Tron And BTTC Networks

Decentralized Exchange, Curve Finance has solidified its position as the second largest DEX, following the announcement of its integration into the TRON network.

Curve Finance’s recent alliance with the TRON network has prompted a substantial investment from TRON DAO Ventures, a venture capital firm established by the TRON network. On Thursday, August 17, TRON Founder, Justin Sun purchased $2 million worth of CRV, the native token of the DeFi protocol. 

Similarly, Curve Finance has stated that it will be launching on the BitTorrent Chain (BTTC) network, a peer-to-peer network blockchain scaling solution for file and data sharing. The Integration of the protocol into TRON DAO and BTTC networks aims to fuel the development of innovative DeFi projects and the growth of DeFi ecosystems. 

Curve Finance is widely known for its role in stable coin trading by providing low slippage exchanges through automated market maker (AMM) algorithms. By aligning with the protocol, TRON  and BTTC will benefit from lower financial costs and indirect backing from prominent blockchains Curve DAO supports including Avalanche, Ethereum, and Arbitrum.

Justin Sun welcomed the newly formed alliance with enthusiasm. He commented that Curve Finance plays a pivotal role in the DeFi ecosystem and blockchain industry and looked forward to new innovative solutions promoted by the partnership. 

“Curve is an essential DeFi infrastructure for the blockchain industry. Our thoughts are with the team and the users affected. As a community, let’s support and strengthen the security measures to protect our decentralized ecosystem,” Sun stated. 

Curve (CRV) price chart from Tradingview.com (TRON DAO)

Compensation For Hack Victims Following Tron Alliance

The decentralized finance (DeFi) landscape was previously shaken up following news of a hack on the DEX. On July 30, Curve Finance fell victim to a reentrancy attack that exploited vulnerabilities in its smart contract codes, resulting in a loss of $62 million. 

Following the news of the hack attack, the CRV token declined and the majority of the DeFi ecosystem was in panic. However, Curve Finance has reportedly recovered 70% of the funds and to recover the rest of the stolen funds, the protocol has placed a bounty on the attacker, promising $1.85 million to anyone able to reveal the hacker’s identity. 

Curve Finance has also promised to compensate victims of the security breach. The DEX has stated that it will distribute reimbursements fairly as they determine the extent of damages and work toward recovering the stolen funds. 

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Will Curve DAO (CRV) Recover? Here’s What On-Chain Data Says

Curve DAO (CRV) has continued to decline recently. Here’s what on-chain data says regarding if a rebound is probable for the coin anytime soon.

What Curve DAO Metrics Hint At Regarding Futures Price Action

In a new insight post, the on-chain analytics firm Santiment has recently discussed how the underlying metrics related to CRV have looked. The first relevant metric here is the “Supply Distribution,” which tells us the percentage of the Curve DAO supply each investor group holds.

In particular, the cohort of interest here holds between 10,000 and 100 million tokens of the asset. This is an extensive range covering the likes of the sharks and whales.

Here is a chart that shows the trend in the holdings of this CRV group over the past year:

Curve Sharks & Whales

As displayed in the above graph, the indicator’s value has shot up recently, implying that sizeable Curve DAO investors, such as the sharks and whales, have sharply expanded their reserves.

About two weeks back, these holders had been carrying a combined 33% of the circulating supply, but today that value has risen to 41%. “This is a massive ascension and is now the most by far that these sharks and whales have held in well over a year,” notes Santiment.

This accumulation from these key investors has come right after the big plunge that Curve DAO observed, suggesting that they find the current levels a worthy buying opportunity. Naturally, this is a positive sign for the cryptocurrency’s price.

The next indicator of interest here is the “whale transaction count,” which keeps track of the total number of CRV transfers happening on the chain carrying a value of more than $100,000.

Curve DAO Whale Transaction Count

When Curve Dao had observed its plunge earlier, the value of this indicator had registered a sharp spike. This means that the whales had been actively making moves back then.

Since then, however, the metric’s value has returned to normal, suggesting that these humongous investors aren’t showing any extraordinary activity.

As these investors had made many transfers earlier for selling purposes, the indicator calming down could imply that this cohort has stopped applying selling pressure.

“With prices still significantly lower than two weeks ago, a follow-up whale transaction spike may be a foreshadow to a quick recovery,” explains the on-chain analytics firm.

CRV has been at relatively high levels recently in terms of the development activity (that is, the amount of work that the Curve DAO developers have been putting into the public GitHub repository).

Curve DAO Development Activity

Generally, a high development activity implies that the coin is still being backed by its developers, which can be one of the signs to look out for to know if a project is still alive and kicking. Santiment said:

By no means is 10-14 notable GitHub submissions per day breaking any records, but it is indicative of a team that is still looking to innovate, improve, and move past the recent FUD news that negatively impacted the crowd’s perceptions of it.

CRV Price

Curve DAO is trading around $0.59 at the time of writing, down 3% in the last week.

Curve DAO Price Chart

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Curve Finance Announces $1.85 Million Bounty For Stable Pool Exploiter

Curve Finance, a popular decentralized (DeFi) protocol, has recently announced that it was rewarding persons capable of identifying the exploiters behind the draining of over $61 million from the platform’s stable pools on July 30. 

The huge bounty offer is open to every person who can pinpoint the individual behind the incident in such a way that would lead to definitive legal repercussions. 

Curve Finance Extends Bounty Offer to the Public

Curve Finance announced the public offer using an Ethereum transaction’s input data, noting that the allowed time for the voluntary return of the funds connected to the Curve exploit was 08:00 UTC, and that time is now elapsed. 

Curve and other protocols that were affected by the attack had previously offered a 10% bug bounty to the hacker on August 3. Upon agreeing to the offer, the hacker returned part of the stolen assets to JPEGd and Alchemix but did not refund other affected pools. 

Since the time allowed has elapsed, Curve announced that any person capable of identifying the hacker would receive assets worth $1.85 million. This recent announcement was extended in scope to include members of the general public. 

According to Curve, while the deadline for the voluntary return of stolen funds had passed, should the hacker elect to return the stolen funds, the platform “…will not pursue this further.” 

While returning the parts of the funds earlier, the hacker left a message that was seemingly targeted at Curve and Alchemix teams, noting their intention to return the funds. However, the hacker stated that the decision to return such funds was not based on fear of being recognized but rather out of a desire not to “ruin” the projects associated with the exploit.

Curve Finance (CRV) price chart from Tradingview.com

The $61 Million Reentrancy Attack

Members of the Curve Finance community were left shocked after a hacker utilized vulnerable versions of the Vyper programming language to implement reentrancy attacks on stable pools within Curve Finance on the 31st of July. 

The attack drained Curve Finance of over $61 million, including $13.6 million from Alchemix’s aIETH-ETH, $11.4 million from JPEGd’s pETH-ETH, and $1.6 million from Metronome’s sETH-ETH. The event raised concerns about the likely fallout in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, especially with respect to the risks posed to every pool using Wrapped Ether (WETH).

The DeFi community rallied around to provide support to Curve Finance and on the 31st of July, a white hat hacker was able to successfully recover from the exploiter about 2,879 Ether worth about $5.4 million, which was later returned to Curve Finance. Another ethical hacker also recovered about 3,000 ETH and refunded it to Curve Finance’s deployer address. 

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Curve Impressively Adds 22% As Founder Sells CRV To Repay Aave Loan

CRV, the governance token of Curve, a decentralized exchange for stablecoins and a key player in the decentralized finance (DeFi) landscape, has impressively recovered, adding 22% after sinking to its August 2023 lows this week.

When writing on August 3, CRV is trading at $0.59, rising double digits after dropping to $0.48 on August 1 following a damaging hack that saw liquidity providers in several pools lose funds. 

Whales Stepping In To Buy CRV

This recovery is attributed primarily to strategic actions by notable crypto whales who have stepped in to mitigate risks on DeFi should CRV prices continue to tank. Meanwhile, Michael Egorov, the founder of Curve and one of the largest CRV holders, has been actively unloading tokens in the secondary market.

Egorov is selling to whales like Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, and other venture capitals and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). The founder held around 292 million CRV and used a big percentage to back his loans.

On-chain data indicates that on August 2, Egorov sold 3.75 million CRV tokens to Yearn Treasury and another 1.25 million CRV tokens to Stake DAO Governance via the over-the-counter (OTC) market.

Egorov has, overall, sold 59.5 million CRV to various institutions and investors, yielding approximately $23.8 million. These OTC sales are at significant discounts, reflecting the founder’s efforts to stabilize CRV prices and prevent further contagion.

CRV price on August 3| Source: CRVUSDT on Binance, TradingView

The July 30 hack saw attackers steal funds from several liquidity pools after exploiting a re-entrancy flaw. JPEG’d, Alchemix, Pendle, and Metronome pools suffered losses initially estimated at around $70 million. However, other reports suggest that white hat hackers intervened, reducing the total impact to approximately $50 million. 

Following this news, CRV prices dropped by over 12%. Considering Curve’s prominence in DeFi, the hack and price crash caused reverberation throughout Curve and DeFi, especially in decentralized money markets. 

Curve Is A Big Player In DeFi, Egorov Paying Off Debt

Curve manages over $2 billion as total value locked (TVL), according to DeFiLlama. While there are no confirmed repercussions on other protocols, attention swung to Egorov’s $60 million Aave v2 loan, which was primarily backed by CRV. Should this loan be liquidated, it would likely mean more selling pressure on CRV, leading to another possible contagion, especially for other CRV holders with loans across different protocols.

Looking at on-chain data, Egorov is taking active steps to reduce the risks brought about by his huge Aave loan that’s overly collateralized by CRV. Egorov aims to minimize the potential consequences of forced liquidation through off-market transactions, where he is selling his CRV at a discount and simultaneously repaying his loan. This, in turn, appears to be supporting prices.

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Curve Finance Fights Back With Warning And Unrefusable Offer To Hacker

Curve Finance (CRV) has issued a statement on Etherscan, addressing the hackers responsible for the recent exploit that resulted in the loss of over $60 million from the protocol. 

In the statement, Curve, Metronome & Alchemix have invited the hackers to discuss a potential bounty, offering a 10% reward for any stolen funds, which they can keep if they return the remaining 90%.

Curve Finance Gives Hackers Ultimatum

The group has emphasized that there will be no risk of them pursuing legal action or involving law enforcement if the hackers participate in this voluntary return process. 

However, suppose the hackers do not participate and complete the process by August 6. In that case, Curve Finance will expand the bounty to the public and offer the full 10% reward to anyone who can identify them in a way that leads to their conviction in court. The encrypted message on Etherscan further noted:

If you choose not to participate in the voluntary return and complete the process by August 6, we will expand the bounty to the public, and offer the full 10% to the person who can identify you in a way that leads to your conviction in the courts. We will pursue you from all angles with the full extent of the law.

To verify their ownership of the email address, anyone emailing Curve Finance will have to complete a verification process on-cain before any discussions occur.

The statement highlights Curve Finance’s commitment to recovering the stolen funds and bringing those responsible to justice. 

By offering a bounty and encouraging the hackers to return the funds voluntarily, Curve Finance is proactively resolving the situation. However, the group has also clarified that they will pursue all legal avenues to recover the funds if the hackers choose not to cooperate.

It remains to be seen whether the hackers will take Curve Finance up on their offer or whether the group will need to expand the bounty to the public. Nevertheless, this statement demonstrates Curve Finance’s determination to protect the protocol and its users and sends a strong message to would-be attackers that such actions will not be tolerated.

Aave DAO Member Suggests Tactical Move To Acquire CRV

An Aave Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) member has proposed a strategic move to acquire CRV tokens using USDT from the Aave DAO treasury. 

Recent events surrounding Aave V2 have provided an opportunity to incentivize GHO liquidity through Curve voting power. 

The proposed acquisition of CRV tokens will benefit the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem by providing additional liquidity to the Curve protocol. Additionally, the move will position Aave DAO to benefit from the ongoing “Curve wars” and gain extra voting power on the platform.

The Aave DAO member who proposed the move emphasized the importance of taking a strategic approach to treasury management. By acquiring CRV tokens with USDT, Aave DAO can maintain a conservative approach to treasury holdings while still supporting the growth of the DeFi ecosystem.

The proposal has received positive feedback from the community, with many members expressing support for the move. If the proposal is approved, it will be a significant step forward for Aave DAO and the broader DeFi ecosystem.

Overall, this proposal demonstrates the importance of strategic treasury management in the fast-paced world of DeFi. By taking a conservative approach to treasury holdings while still supporting the ecosystem’s growth, Aave DAO is setting an example for other DeFi projects to follow.

Curve Finance

Despite the ongoing issues experienced by the Curve protocol, CRV has reported significant gains of over 4% in the last 24 hours, with the current trading price at $0.602. 

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView.com

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CRV Price Recovers From 6-Month Lows, What’s Driving The Price?

Curve Finance’s native token CRV has recovered from a 6-month low, and many believe that the news of Huobi co-founder Jun Du buying CRV tokens has contributed to it. 

Jun Du bought 10 million tokens valued at $4 million from Micheal Egorov, founder of Curve. Egorov had offered his tokens for sale to bolster his at-risk loan positions, primarily for borrowing stablecoins using CRV tokens as collateral. 

Some Positives For Curve Finance Despite Hack

Curve Finance, one of the biggest DeFi protocols on the Ethereum blockchain, recently saw its in-house CRV price recover about 25% at the start of the month. It had previously dropped by 35% between July 30-31 following the panic selloff spearheaded by Curve Finance’s $47 million exploit. 

The July reentrancy attack was not the only exploit recorded on Curve Finance as the DeFi protocol had previously lost over $570,000 in August 2022 after hackers compromised the front end of its liquidity pool. 

However, the recent acquisition of 10 million tokens by Jun Du projects a positive outlook for CRV tokens, especially the recent attack on its ecosystem. Confirming the transaction, Du noted that he has locked up his investment for a period of one year as veCRV. 

Apart from Du, the Aave Chan Initiative, a delegate platform from Aave’s governance forum, recently put forward a proposal for the purchase of about $2 million worth of CRV. After the planned purchase, which is to be made by the Aave Treasury, the CRV tokens would also be locked up as veCRV for about four years. 

Curve (CRV) price chart from Tradingview.com

CRV Remains Popular Among Investors

Egorov has so far sold 72 million CRV tokens to various investors and the continued purchase and acceptance of the CRV token demonstrates its popularity and utility. 

One such investor who remains bullish on CRV is Justin Sun, founder of the Tron network. He recently acquired 5 million CRV from Egorov by paying using Tether’s USDT in a direct Over-the-counter (OTC) trade. Justin confirmed the purchase in a tweet noting that both platforms “As steadfast partners” will keep being “…committed to providing support whenever needed.”

According to a Twitter post by Sandra from Nansen, other popular purchasers of Curve tokens include Cream Finance, Machi Big Brother, DWF Labs, DCFGod, and Andrew Kang, co-founder of Mechanism Capital. 

A vast majority of these transactions were conducted through OTC, with Egorov realizing over $20 million, which he applied to balancing his borrowings and removing himself from liquidation. Egorov also sent another huge supply of CRV (17.5 million) to an address starting with 0xf51. 

Once the largest DeFi protocol on the Ethereum blockchain, the vast majority of Curve trading volumes still come from Ethereum. 

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Abracadabra Protocol To Counter CRV Risk With 200% Interest Rate Hike

DeFi lending protocol, Abracadabra Money, is currently debating a proposal to boost the interest rate in its CRV lending markets as it looks to mitigate its exposure to the DeFi token. 

In the last few days, CRV  has seen its value decline significantly due to the recent Curve Finance exploit on Sunday, which resulted in a total loss of over $60 million. According to data from CoinMarketCap, CRV is currently trading at $0.56, with an 8.28% loss in the last 24 hours.

Abracadabra Exposed To Significant CRV Risk Levels

In a governance proposal submitted on Aug 1, DAO contributor and community manager Romy highlighted that Abracadabra was currently exposed to a substantial level of CRV risk.

To address this situation, the proposal contains a strategy that introduces collateral-based interest to both CRV cauldrons – lending markets – on Abracadabra.

Related Reading: Ethereum DeFi Coins Plunge As Curve Concerns Threaten Major Market Crash

Romy stated that Curve Finance, the underlying platform of CRV, has seen its TVL negatively affected over the last month by several events, including the Conic Finance Hack, the JPEG’d exploit, and the attack on Curve itself. 

In particular, Romy noted that the theft of $25 million from Curve’s CRV/ETH pool had impacted the on-chain liquidity for CRV, altering the conditions that led to the adoption of the token as a collateral asset on Abracadabra. 

In addition, the proposal also noted that Abracadabra had recorded CRV outflows toward markets with lower Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratios and higher interest rates. Together, all these factors have affected CRV’s price and liquidity, prompting the need for Abracadabra to reduce its exposure to the token.

 

Abracadabra’s Proposed Strategy To Introduce 200% Interest Hike

As earlier stated, Romy’s governance proposal aims to cover Abracadabra CRV’s risk by applying collateral-based interest to the two CRV lending markets on the platform. It was stated that this strategy had been previously implemented with the WBTC and WETH cauldrons. 

This introduction of collateral-based interests would allow Abracadabra to levy interest directly on each CRV cauldron’s collateral which is directly transferred to the protocol’s treasury and converted to Abracardra’s native stablecoin MIM, either via on-chain or off-chain transactions. 

Related Reading: Is It A Good Idea To Buy Curve Now? Here’s What This Founder Thinks

Based on projections, Romy stated that this strategy would allow Abracadabra to boost its treasury reserve and cut potential losses due to CRV exposure to about $5M borrowed MIM. 

Under the new proposed interest structure, the interest rates will be determined based on two factors: the combined outstanding principal of the CRV cauldrons and the collateral ratio of each cauldron. 

The base interest rate will vary depending on the total borrowed amount, classified into three ranges: $0M-$5M, $5M-$10M, and $10M-$18M. For instance, as the current outstanding principal stands at $18M, the base interest rate would be set at 200%. 

Using this rate, it is estimated that the loan would be completely covered in six months’ time. Furthermore, the collateral ratio would influence the interest multiplier, with ratios ranging from <= 40% to <= 70% correlating to multipliers of 1x, 5x, 10x, and 25x, respectively.  

According to the proposal, this interest rate structure ensures the maximum chances of “full principal recovery” for Abracadabra.

The voting session for this proposal commenced on Aug. 1. and will run for only 46 hours due to the supposed urgency of the matter. As of the time of writing, 51 members of the Abracadabra DAO have placed their votes, with 99.74% supporting the proposal.