Curve crashes out of the top 10 – Here’s what’s next
- Curve’s TVL has struggled to hike since July’s hack
- Despite the decline in demand for the protocol, its fees and revenue surged in October and November
Curve Finance [CRV] has officially fallen out of the top ten decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols by total value locked (TVL), according to data from DeFiLlama.
This decline comes after a period of a steady decrease in activity on the protocol, which began following a re-entrancy hack that occurred on 30 July. The hack resulted in the loss of millions of dollars worth of user funds and significantly impacted user confidence in the platform.
With a TVL of $1.96 billion at press time, Curve ranked as the 12th DeFi protocol in terms of TVL.
Users continue to shun Curve
While the TVL decline stopped actively plummeting around mid-October, it remains significantly lower than its position before the hack. As of 29 July, Curve’s TVL was $3.25 billion.This can be attributed to the low user activity on the protocol, compared to other DeFi projects since July.
In an attempt to restore user confidence and drive growth, Curve launched new pools on the Layer-2 (L2) platform Base on 30 August. However, the protocol’s TVL has dwindled by 19% since then as users continue to avoid the protocol. Moreover, the past month has seen a significant resurgence in DeFi activity. Many protocols have logged double-digit upticks in their TVL too.
However, during that period, Curve has seen little to no growth. In fact, in the last 30 days, the protocol’s TVL dipped by 1%. In the last week alone, this has fallen by almost 10%, according to data from DefiLlama.
Furthermore, the market share held by Curve’s stablecoin crvUSD in the liquid staking finance (LST-fi) sector has plummeted significantly. Data from Dune Analytics showed that this was 13.2% in September, before falling to a mere 6.5% at press time.
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Some respite?
Interestingly, while Curve dealt with low user activity and declining TVL, its fees and revenue from the same trended north. This might be due to the general growth in the values of cryptocurrencies in the last two months.
Data from DefiLlama showed that in October, Curve’s fees totalled $4.01 million. This represented a 125% hike from the $1.81 million recorded in transaction fees the previous month. In the same month, protocol revenue totalled $1.52 million, growing by 156% during the 31-day period. The hike sustained itself in November as Curve recorded a 12% fee rally and a 30% uptick in revenue.
So far this month, protocol fees and revenue have amounted to $2.71 million and $1.36 million, respectively.