Curve price Archives

11th January 2024

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.

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.

28th December 2023

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.

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.

13th September 2023

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.

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.