Curve DAO Token (CRV) is the governance and reward token of the Curve DAO. The DAO runs a decentralised exchange built for stablecoins and other assets that trade at nearly the same price. It also runs the crvUSD stablecoin and a set of lending markets. CRV is paid out to liquidity providers. Holders who lock it get veCRV, which carries voting power, a share of protocol revenue and a bigger reward rate on their own liquidity. The latest major governance decision came on 2 September 2026, when the DAO funded yRisk as the risk provider for crvUSD and its lending markets.
Latest: September 2026 risk mandate and the Swiss Stake funding fight
2 September 2026: risk mandate funded
veCRV holders approved a 12-month engagement with yRisk as risk provider for crvUSD and the lending markets. It is paid with 125,000 frxUSD and 568,181 CRV. The Defiant reports that yRisk's two contributors are also the main developers of Resupply, a protocol that lost $9.6 million in a June 2025 exploit, and that the proposal did not disclose this link. The vote passed with almost no opposition.
24 December 2025: core developer grant rejected
The DAO voted down a request for about 17.45 million CRV (reported at around $6.2 million) for Swiss Stake AG, the core development firm. The result was 54.46% against and 45.54% in favour. Addresses linked to Yearn Finance and Convex Finance cast nearly 90% of the votes against. People who opposed it raised two concerns: centralisation, and how earlier grants had been spent. Swiss Stake then posted an amended proposal on the DAO forum. It splits the funding into two phases with separate votes, the first covering 8.725 million CRV for six months of operations.
September 2025: credit line for Yield Basis
The DAO approved a credit line of up to $60 million in crvUSD for Yield Basis, a new protocol built by Curve founder Michael Egorov. The line funds three bitcoin pools on Ethereum, initially capped at $10 million. The stated aim was to increase fee flows to veCRV holders. Critics raised conflict-of-interest concerns because some voters may also hold stakes in Yield Basis.
Key facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Ticker | CRV |
| Launched | August 2020, on Ethereum |
| Maximum supply | About 3.03 billion CRV, fixed |
| Emissions | Cut by about 16% every August; the remainder goes to liquidity providers over roughly 200 years |
| Inflation | 4.96% per the official docs |
| Vesting | All team, investor and employee vesting ended in August 2024 |
| Mining | Not mineable; new CRV comes only from scheduled emissions |
Initial allocation
- Community emissions to liquidity providers: 57% (about 1,879 million CRV)
- Core team: 26.4% (about 801 million)
- Early users: 5% (about 152 million)
- Community reserve: 5% (about 152 million)
- Investors: 3.6% (about 108 million)
- Employees: 3% (about 91 million)
How much veCRV does your lock give?
Enter the CRV you lock and the years left on the lock to see your veCRV balance today.
| CRV you lock | Years remaining on the lock | Your veCRV balance at this point |
|---|---|---|
| 1 CRV | 4 years | 1 veCRV |
| 1 CRV | 1 years | 0.25 veCRV |
| 2,500 CRV | 4 years | 2,500 veCRV |
- The CRV amount and the years remaining are your own inputs, not figures from any source.
- The balance shrinks steadily and reaches zero when the lock ends, so entering fewer years left shows what the same lock is worth later.
- 2,500 veCRV is the minimum needed to create a DAO vote; the second example shows the 4-year lock that reaches it.
This applies only the lock formula: it does not estimate crvUSD fee income, the reward boost of up to 2.5x, or what CRV is worth, and locked CRV cannot be withdrawn before the lock ends.
How veCRV works
Holders lock CRV to get vote-escrowed CRV (veCRV).
- Lock length: from 1 week to 4 years. The amount of veCRV you get is CRV locked × years remaining ÷ 4. So 1 CRV locked for 4 years gives 1 veCRV, and 1 CRV locked for 1 year gives 0.25 veCRV.
- Decay: the balance shrinks steadily and reaches zero when the lock ends. To keep the same voting power, you have to extend the lock.
- No early exit: you can't withdraw before the lock ends. veCRV can't be transferred.
- What it gives you:
- votes on DAO proposals - gauge-weight votes, which decide which pools receive weekly CRV emissions - a share of trading fees and of interest from the crvUSD markets - up to a 2.5x boost on your own CRV rewards as a liquidity provider
- Fee token: since 20 June 2024, fees have been paid in crvUSD instead of the earlier 3CRV pool token. The DAO said the change was meant to create demand for crvUSD.
Governance mechanics
DAO votes last 7 days. A vote passes only if it meets both a quorum threshold and a minimum-support threshold. Creating a vote takes at least 2,500 veCRV. In practice, much of the veCRV voting power sits with a few aggregator protocols, and they can decide close votes, as the December 2025 vote showed.
Who is behind it
Michael Egorov founded Curve. Before that he co-founded NuCypher, a crypto infrastructure project, and served as its CTO. Swiss Stake AG is the core development company and is funded through DAO grants. Three venture firms sued Egorov in California, alleging he broke promises about an equity stake. A California judge dismissed the case because it was filed in the wrong jurisdiction, without ruling on the merits; the firms' lawyers said the claims belong in a Swiss court, where a separate case is under way.
Risks that have already happened
- Smart contract and compiler bugs (30 July 2023). A reentrancy bug in Vyper compiler versions 0.2.15, 0.2.16 and 0.3.0 was used to drain several pools on the protocol and on other projects that used those compilers. CertiK counted $69.3 million affected and $16.7 million returned by white-hat hackers. The bug was in the compiler, not the pool logic, so an audit of the pool code alone did not catch it.
- Concentrated collateral (June 2024). On-chain analysts reported that Egorov had borrowed about $95.7 million in stablecoins against roughly $141 million in CRV across several lending protocols. When CRV fell sharply around 13 June 2024, most of those positions were liquidated. The protocol's own lending markets reported about $10–11.5 million in bad debt, which Egorov later said he had repaid. Any token with large holder positions used as collateral can face forced selling like this.
- Governance concentration. A small number of veCRV holders decide emissions, grants and risk mandates.
- Dilution. Emissions are still adding new supply, though less each year.
This article is not investment advice.
