Overview
Curve Finance was created by Michael Egorov and launched in 2020. It is the leading decentralized exchange for stablecoins and assets that should trade near the same price (like different versions of staked ETH), offering very low slippage for large trades.
Curve sits at the center of DeFi: many protocols depend on its pools for liquidity, which led to the “Curve Wars” over its rewards (see our Convex review).
How it works
- Pools of similar assets use a special formula that keeps prices tight.
- CRV rewards go to liquidity providers. Holders who lock CRV for up to four years get veCRV, which lets them vote on which pools get rewards and earn a share of fees.
- crvUSD (2023) is Curve’s own stablecoin, minted against crypto collateral with a soft-liquidation system.
- Yield Basis (2025), funded by a $60 million crvUSD credit line, offers bitcoin yield products designed to avoid impermanent loss, returning part of its value to veCRV holders.
The CRV token
| CRV at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Maximum supply | about 3.03 billion CRV |
| In circulation (Oct 2026) | about 1.58 billion |
| Price (29 Oct 2026) | about $0.33 |
| All-time high | about $15.37 (August 2020, launch) |
| Market cap | about $520 million (#107) |
| Deposits (Oct 2026) | about $1.2 billion (DeFiLlama) |
CRV’s inflation was reduced to about 5% a year in 2025 and keeps falling.
Risks
- Past incidents. In July 2023, a bug in the Vyper programming language drained several Curve pools of tens of millions of dollars. In June 2024, Egorov’s large loans backed by CRV were liquidated, crashing the price.
- Inflation. New CRV dilutes holders who don’t lock.
- Competition. Uniswap v4 and other DEXs compete for stablecoin trading.
Curve vs. the competition
| Curve | Uniswap | Convex | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Specialty | Stablecoin and pegged-asset swaps | All tokens | Boosting Curve rewards |
| Own stablecoin | crvUSD | No | No |
| Token value | Fees + Yield Basis share for veCRV | Fee-funded burns | Fees + vote incentives |
Our verdict
Curve remains essential DeFi infrastructure, and crvUSD and Yield Basis show it’s still innovating. But CRV’s inflation and turbulent history have weighed heavily on the price. CRV is a high-risk investment: invest only what you can afford to lose.
This review is for information only and is not financial advice.