Original author: Wang Feng, founder of Blue Harbor Interactive

Reprinted from: Lawrence, Mars Finance

CRV: The 'Historical King' of DeFi Rises Again

Since the launch of Curve DAO, it has held a significant position in the decentralized finance sector. Despite ongoing market volatility, CRV's performance remains robust. When Curve was first released, its highest price was $30, and in the last bull market, it peaked at $6.8. Today, CRV's market cap is only about $1 billion, making it undoubtedly a low-risk, high-return ideal investment target compared to its market potential and future growth space.

If the bull market continues for another three months, the revival of DeFi is almost inevitable. CRV will undoubtedly be one of the key projects in the next wave of explosive growth, and its arrival will be rapid and unstoppable! As the historical King of DeFi, CRV has the opportunity to achieve a tenfold increase.

It is particularly noteworthy that CRV's price reached $30 at its initial launch, while the peak in the last bull market was $6.8. Today, CRV's market cap is only about $1 billion, which makes its risk during a bull market relatively low while its return potential is exceptionally promising.

I don't care if previous investors bought in at half price, as CRV's long-term value is inevitable.

Moreover, recently, BlackRock, a global asset management giant, announced its $533 million BUIDL fund's collaboration with Curve to further promote Curve's expansion in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. This collaboration will not only strengthen Curve's position as a liquidity center in the stablecoin market but also bridge traditional finance and DeFi. In particular, BlackRock's partnership could result in the minting of yield-bearing synthetic dollars (deUSD) from institutional assets (Real World Assets, RWA) amounting to up to $1 billion. Currently, the Curve pool already holds about $64 million in deUSD liquidity, accounting for 60% of its total liquidity.

Why is CRV so important?

1. Dominance of Stablecoins:

Curve DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that manages the Curve Finance platform, which specializes in providing optimized decentralized exchanges (DEX) for stablecoin and wrapped token trading. It employs a unique automated market maker (AMM) design algorithm to provide low slippage and high-efficiency exchanges, thus differing from traditional AMMs like Uniswap. The CURVE token is used for governance, allowing the community to vote on various aspects of the protocol, including protocol upgrades, liquidity incentives, and fee distribution. This helps to build a strong community, allowing governance decisions to be made collectively, further enhancing its significance in the DeFi space.

2. Ecosystem and Partnerships:

Curve is a fundamental component of the DeFi ecosystem, providing liquidity for many other DeFi platforms. Curve has established strategic partnerships and has been integrated into numerous DeFi protocols (whether yield aggregation protocols like Yearn or lending protocols like Aave or Convex), becoming a pillar of many decentralized financial services, expanding its influence, helping to bring more liquidity to the Curve ecosystem, and contributing to its dominant position in DeFi.

3. Historical King of DeFi:

Curve DAO is referred to as the King of DeFi due to its ultra-high efficiency, dominance, innovation, minimal slippage, and high liquidity in stablecoin exchanges, which are crucial for efficient decentralized financial operations, especially in the decentralized exchange (DEX) and liquidity provision space. With its enormous total locked value (TVL), seamless integration with top protocols, and community-driven governance model that ensures decentralization and long-term community-driven growth, $CRV dominates the DeFi field. It is the preferred platform for stablecoin trading (such as USDC/DAI/USDT) and liquidity.

4. Liquidity and Total Locked Value (TVL):

Curve has consistently ranked at the top in terms of TVL in the DeFi sector, which is an indicator of platform liquidity and high usage rates. Thanks to its dominance in stablecoin and wrapped token trading, as well as its efficient liquidity pools and rewards for liquidity providers, it has outperformed other platforms in liquidity.

The TVL of Curve DAO typically hovers around $5 billion to $7 billion, depending on market conditions and liquidity flows, attracting liquidity providers. Deep liquidity means that users can exchange large amounts of tokens without significantly impacting prices, which is crucial for institutional participants and whales.

5. Role in Yield Farming and Liquidity Mining:

Curve has been at the forefront of yield farming, providing high returns for liquidity providers. This has attracted a large number of users and institutions, as Curve offers competitive returns while reducing trading slippage. Many DeFi users rely on Curve to earn passive income through liquidity mining programs that distribute CRV tokens to liquidity providers.

6. Revenue Generation:

Curve primarily generates revenue through its decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, which provides automated market-making (AMM) services for stablecoins and other liquidity pools. The protocol earns fees from liquidity providers (LPs) and swap fees from users trading on Curve's decentralized exchange (DEX). The revenue generated by Curve DAO is based on the total value locked (TVL) in the protocol and daily trading volume, both of which are in the billions!

7. Institutional Influence:

Curve DAO has always been favored by institutions. By participating in Curve, institutions can access the DeFi market, generate passive income, and engage in low-risk, high-return strategies utilizing stablecoins and other highly liquid assets. Additionally, Curve's decentralized nature, multi-chain support, and increasing integration with traditional financial systems make it an ideal platform for institutions to explore opportunities in the evolving DeFi landscape.

8. Multi-Chain Ecosystem Expansion:

Curve has expanded to Layer 2 solutions (like Arbitrum and Optimism) and other blockchains (like Polygon, Avalanche, and Fantom), providing a more scalable multi-chain platform for stablecoin and asset exchanges, helping to diversify the user base and increase cross-chain liquidity and trading volume.

9. Token Economics:

The circulating supply is only 1.24 billion, of which 42% is permanently locked.