Curve Finance reduces CRV emissions, boosting DAO sustainability

Reported by Cointelegraph: Curve Finance’s CRV token emissions reduced to 162.7 million annually, while Curve DAO earnings surpass emissions for the first time.

Curve Finance, a decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market maker (AMM) platform, has announced the annual reduction of its native CRV token emissions.

According to a press release shared with Cointelegraph, the event marks the fifth consecutive year of emissions reductions “since the token’s launch in 2020.”

“In 2020, the issuance stood at 274 million tokens per year, and now, in 2024, this figure has gone down to approximately 162.7 million.”

CRV total supply reduction
The annual reduction has dropped the total CRV supply to 2.09 billion, with “approximately 930 million” perpetually locked on the platform as vote-escrowed veCRV.

Considering the locked supply, the current circulating supply of CRV tokens is “around 1.16 billion” and aligns with the “end of all vesting periods on Curve’s platform.”

“The reduction in emissions and the end of vesting periods happening at the same time means that the overall annual inflation of the CRV token will go down dramatically – from 20% to just around 6%.”

Curve DAO implications
The fifth annual CRV emission reduction and end of vesting periods also co-align with a milestone for the Curve decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

Curve DAO earnings, “which are entirely allocated to veCRV,” have exceeded CRV emissions for the first time, indicating that the ecosystem is “walking down a path to sustainability.”

“...the increasing number of tokens being locked means that Curve’s participants intend to stay with the platform for the long haul, increasingly committed to its development.”

Curve Finance stablecoin adoption for fees
On June 28, Curve Finance changed its fee distribution mechanism from the 3cr token to the native stablecoin, crvUSD.

The adoption of crvUSD aimed to incentivize users while improving the stablecoin’s utility and integration into the platform’s overall ecosystem.

At the time, Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance, told Cointelegraph that the transition meant that users could now obtain fees “in a dollar-denominated stablecoin,” simplifying the process “significantly.”