Curve Finance has quietly reclaimed center stage on Ethereum — not through hype, but by becoming the destination where traders are actually paying fees.
DeFiLlama data show Curve DAO (CRV) captured roughly 44% of all Ethereum DEX fees over the past 30 days, an all-time high for the protocol. That’s a dramatic swing from about 1.6% a year ago and puts Curve just behind Uniswap in fee share, collecting roughly $15.1 million in 30-day fees. Those numbers reflect where real, sustained trading activity is happening on Ethereum — dominated by stablecoins, ETH pairs and wrapped BTC — rather than fleeting memecoin cycles.
Why Curve is surging
- crvUSD adoption: Trading around Curve’s stablecoin crvUSD has expanded markedly, becoming a major source of volume for the protocol.
- Deep BTC liquidity: After integrating Yield Basis, Curve now hosts some of DeFi’s largest on-chain Bitcoin liquidity. Three Curve BTC pools rank among the top pools by depth and TVL.
- Focused asset mix: Unlike broad AMMs, Curve’s pool composition — concentrated on stable swaps and large-cap pairs — is drawing steady, fee-generating activity.
Important context: fees paid by traders are a proxy for demand and activity, not the same as protocol profit or direct DAO revenue; liquidity providers and other mechanisms determine where those fees ultimately go.
Governance and expansion
Curve’s growth has been accompanied by active governance. The DAO recently rejected a proposal to allocate 17.4 million CRV (about $6.2 million) to the development team; an amended proposal has been submitted. Multiple proposals to add liquidity gauges for new and existing pools are also live, signaling ongoing protocol tuning.
On the ecosystems side, recent deployments on X Layer and Plasma have broadened Curve’s reach, while crvUSD’s rising use reinforces Curve’s role as a foundational layer for stablecoin swaps and yield strategies.
What it means
Curve’s resurgence illustrates a shift in user behavior toward protocols that deliver steady revenue and transparent mechanics over speculative grabs. With expanding crvUSD activity and deeper BTC liquidity, Curve looks positioned to remain a central hub for capital-efficient swaps on Ethereum — and the fee data now make that case clear.
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