June 1, 2021: The Curve Wars 🔍🐇

Curve wins as Yearn, Convex, and StakeDAO compete for yield

Curve Market Cap

Jun 1

This Memorial Day, we asked: what did you do during the Great Curve Wars?

Curve Market Cap @CurveCap

What did you do during the Great $CRV War? #MemorialDay

The Curve curve is flattening. Resources are growing scarce. The people talk of a great battle to come.

Molly @bigmagicdao

3. curve’s 1st emission reduce starts from August , preCrv airdrop will be done around mid August. So people like @DegenSpartan will stop dumping free tokens .

SEM @0xSEM

So @ConvexFinance entered the arena to compete with @iearnfinance and @StakeDAOHQ, fighting to perpetually lock your $CRV into #veCRV They do by providing huge farming incentives ( $SUSHI, $CVX, $SDT ) This fight only has one big winner:

Among Yearn, StakeDAO and now Convex Finance, multiple DeFi protocols building on Curve can’t get enough $CRV to max out their boosts. With these protocols increasingly coming into competition with each other, they all hope to max out their APYs to best serve users. Observe the acceleration of veCRV locking the past month.

At the moment yields are a bit of a mixed bag and dependent on the protocol.

banteg @bantg

Study of CRV APY and boost from veCRV

How did we get here?

The Run-Up

The groundwork for the events preceded the launch of Convex. Within the Yearn governance forum, the community had a detailed discussion about optimum farming strategies for the EPS airdrop.

YIP-60 laid the groundwork for moves, with speculation that it was planned all along to dump profits from the $EPS airdrop to buy $CRV. It’s a point of some debate.

Astronaut Sam Miorelli @SamMiorelli

@bantg @CurveCap @DefiMoon @Bob_The_Buidler @iearnfinance YIP-60 was not at all clear that the plan was to claim and dump the $EPS. When the discussion started it was clear that @Ellipsisfi was considering not airdropping to @iearnfinance if it was going to just dump. Guess joke's on them!

BobTheBuidler @Bob_The_Buidler

@SamMiorelli @bantg @CurveCap @DefiMoon @iearnfinance @Ellipsisfi What Ellipsis didn't want: Claim -> Dump What Yearn did: Claim -> Stake + Lock -> Dump rewards iirc Yearn ran the plan past EPS team and they said go for it

The one thing everybody could agree on: this was a lot of money. Whatever the cause, the result was that Yearn would make large purchases of $CRV.

DefiMoon @DefiMoon

I would like to know as well. I think Yearn devs realized Convex is a serious competitor and decided to dump the weekly $EPS airdrops for $CRV to build up a bigger lead, hence the silence. EPS's FDV ($1.28b) is less than 50% of its TVL ($2.7b).🤡 Someone is dumping it very hard!

Cryptoyieldinfo @Cryptoyieldinfo

@uni_cha0s Not sure yet. Would have appreciated bit more clarity about where the $EPS all went for the yvBOOST holders. I actually hold more yvBOOST than veCRV.

Cryptouf @cryptouf

Did you notice that @iearnfinance purchased 1.42 Millions $CRV from @CurveFinance ? 💪 yMachine💪

yearn.finance @iearnfinance

Yearn has purchased and locked 1.42 million CRV. This will increase both the boost of all Curve vaults and the yveCRV/yvBOOST rewards, earning depositors a higher APY. https://t.co/dfxIAn4UJU https://t.co/nEMdsTYH1m

Indeed, Yearn has been very transparent about its interest in purchasing as much $CRV as possible.

banteg @bantg

Roughly the same amount is already earmarked for another purchase. So what are you waiting for? Get in the vaults, anon.

yearn.finance @iearnfinance

Convex Launches

Convex Finance @ConvexFinance

2 weeks, 3 commas. $1,000,000,000+ TVL

Just weeks ago, the launch of Convex proved about as successful as any new DeFi protocol could hope. The protocol already passed $1 billion in value locked. Just yesterday, Convex flippened Yearn in terms of total veCRV locked.

DefiMoon @DefiMoon

$CRV #TheLockening 🌜update Yearn $veCRV: 17.3m Convex $veCRV: 17.6m 😱 $CVX ⚔️ $YFI Flippening✅🏁 Congratulations to @ConvexFinance 🥳🥂🥇 Vettel F1 GIF

goodgirlgonecrypto.onlymarketbuy @gggonecrypto

The $CVX flippening is here. Let's fucking go curvemarketcap.com/leaderboard . Pretty amazing for a 2 weeks old protocol 🚀

Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the Curve War!

BLUE KIRBY (former millionaire) @bluekirbyfi

U can fry this brosquito any way u want Fact @ConvexFinance caught up to @iearnfinance veCRV moat in less than three weeks. yearn pays strategists and treasury convex only pays the procotol if ur too low IQ to understand just kno this fren… the $CRV war has just begun 😈

banteg @bantg

The case might be not as simple, since 42% of Convex TVL is actually delegated by Yearn, Yearn still earns 2.38x for its users. https://t.co/knMwue3YTl

goodgirlgonecrypto.onlymarketbuy @gggonecrypto

and $CVX also has a better tokenomic & value accrual for the $CVX stakers with APY currently sitting at 52.84% docs.convexfinance.com/convexfinance/…

DefiMoon @DefiMoon

Yearn has to buy their $CRV to compete with Convex, but 📈CRV price means harder for Yearn to compete, meanwhile Convex is a CRV locking machine on steroids with growing TVL and revenue. #TheLockening 🔒📈 $CVX, a #defi king in the making, still not listed on any CEX!! 🤐 https://t.co/vTkrqHmB0v

0ddba11.eth 🌈 yvBOOST Maximalist @0x0ddba11

@bantg is out here doing god’s work defending Yearn. Why is everyone bearish on Yearn suddenly? Convex and Yearn can coexist and thrive. But $YFI ftw 😉

banteg @bantg

@bluekirbyfi @ConvexFinance @iearnfinance What you see here is Yearn rebalancing to maximize the returns. Yearn and Convex own a similar amount of veCRV (17m and 16m respectively). Instead of having $1b boosted with 17m, we can spread out and get boosted by both.

It’s Complicated

Crypto Twitter is already primed for blood just a week into the bear market. Imagine how insufferable a long winter will be.

At any rate, as much as we all enjoy a good battle, we think the talk of a heated competition is mostly overblown. After all, can you point to the spot on the chart where Convex touched Yearn?

At the moment there’s not any particular evidence Convex is cannibalizing Yearn or even impacting it in any way. Both Yearn and Convex are useful services with very distinct mechanics. In such situations, we often expect they’ll find a different userbase as they evolve in distinct directions.

Curve Crvsader @curve_crvsader

Pretty special to see $3b in @iearnfinance TVL think this fee structure is a good fit for DeFi. Parasites gonna parasites. Go $CVX and $CRV.

If these two protocols are indeed actually a war, then one of the enemies has already breached the gates. Yearn already controls 42% of the Convex TVL.

banteg @bantg

The case might be not as simple, since 42% of Convex TVL is actually delegated by Yearn, Yearn still earns 2.38x for its users.

goodgirlgonecrypto.onlymarketbuy @gggonecrypto

The $CVX flippening is here. Let's fucking go https://t.co/PWQuJWsT8d . Pretty amazing for a 2 weeks old protocol 🚀 https://t.co/loPmWhQB0a

Yearn operates more like a 2 and 20 hedge fund. Historically Yearn has shown capacity to shrewdly and swiftly aim their money cannon in the direction of whatever major development befalls the crypto world. They’ve deployed a whopping 178 strategies alone in pursuit of such opportunities since launch.

banteg @bantg

@KentoInami Running a yield aggregator is a ton of work. You need degens to source new opportunities, risk team to assess their safety, strategists to codify them, and adjust parameters for best returns. Yearn has deployed 178 strategies this year. Even catching up will take a large team.

Yearn may also be able to corner a niche market among users who care about, say, women’s issues.

Bunny Girl @0xbunnygirl

Yearn has good female representation in their posts

yearn.finance @iearnfinance

Convex’s offerings are not quite so complex, at least at the moment. They have a few tokens that throw off cash, in what users liken to a money flywheel.

BLUE KIRBY (CURVE BULL🦙) @bluekirbyfi

Look... $CVX gets 5% of all fees generated stake $CVX for 42.73% APY earn $cvxCRV and stake for 123.46% APY earn $3CRV, $CRV, $CVX stake them again... and the flywheel keeps ROLLING 🎡 CVX 18.3m vs YFI 17.3m veCRV locked 🧐 if u understood CRV, price would teleport lol

CRVpensioner @CRVpensioner

@bluekirbyfi @CurveFinance @ConvexFinance How did I miss that staking $cvxCRV returns 160%? Off to lock up $CRV on Convex then this is really is a no brained here

The Curve War

While the competition between these two is overblown, we agree there is at least one point of competition. All parties want more $CRV, and not everybody can get it all. To this extent, a Curve War is very much in effect, in the form of a bloodless bidding war for $CRV.

FluctusLux @FluctusLux

No matter who your horse is between @ConvexFinance and @iearnfinance, @CurveFinance just wins. $CVX 🤝 $CRV 🤝 $YFI https://t.co/tO1xOMF79X

DefiMoon @DefiMoon

#TheLockening🔐 of $CRV continues 📈 Yearn: $veCRV 17.1m Convex: $veCRV 15.8m Differential: 1.3m, a📉of 1.55m from yesterday. Even though Yearn is now buying and locking, Convex is still gaining ground. $CVX ⚔️ $YFI 6.2m CRV locked so far today, 312% of daily emissions.🔒🔒🔒 https://t.co/MnbK8OLO2V

찌 G 跻じ MBA, CFA, FRM, CFP, NGMI, HFSP, HENTAI @DegenSpartan

been thinking about it 🤔 h/t @bluekirbyfi $CVX / $cvxCRV is a great example on how to use tokens to economically incentivize a vampire attack against the $YFI vaults using a $CRV strategy as long as the protocols in question arent hacked, you know what they say

Molly @bigmagicdao

Curve @CurveFinance needs more appreciation and #crv is heavily undervalue. 1.the veCrv competition between @iearnfinance @ConvexFinance and @StakeDAOHQ , they all wants boost up their earnings and increase their APY by purchase and lock more #Crv.

More than ever, we can only recommend you buy stonks in Orville Redenbacher and enjoy the show. 🍿🍿🍿

** Update, 6/1 10:00 PT **

@Banteg passes along this helpful dashboard.

For more info, check our live market data at https://curvemarketcap.com/ or our subscribe to our daily newsletter at https://curve.substack.com/. Nothing in our newsletter can be construed as financial advice so don’t actually buy stonks in Orville Redenbacher, a property of ConAgra $CAG. Author is a $CRV maximalist and has positions in Convex and an indirect interest in Yearn by way of the Ironbank pool.

June 1, 2021: The Curve Wars 🔍🐇

Curve wins as Yearn, Convex, and StakeDAO compete for yield

The Run-Up

Convex Launches

It’s Complicated

The Curve War

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