The Curve DAO has $290,000 in its couch cushions

Most people might find a few coins, and if they are lucky, a few dollars wedged between their couch cushions. But decentralised exchange Curve Finance now has around $290,000 in revenue hidden away.

Some $124,000 in revenue from the wxDAI/USDC/USDT pool and $166,000 in revenue from over 160 other pools are stuck until the fees are manually claimed.

This isn’t the first time Curve found money in its proverbial couch cushions: Back in July 2023, the DAO claimed over $280,000 that was also stuck.

Couch cushions are a name given by Curve users for liquidity pools that have uncollected fees in them. Once collected, the fees will be distributed to veCRV stakeholders.

veCRV is obtained by staking and locking CRV for a period of up to four years.

Curve is deployed across 13 chains and has hundreds of liquidity pools. On chains like Gnosis Chain, claiming these revenues is not as simple as claiming revenue on Ethereum, and as a result, it has not yet been automated.

For pools on Ethereum, it can cost more gas to claim than the underlying amount of the revenue, which results in revenue accumulating until it is high enough to cover the cost of gas.

Notably, anyone can execute the code to collect the revenue, although if the steps are done in the wrong order, it can result in the claimer paying higher gas fees.

For the week of February 7-14, Curve Finance generated $315,000 in revenue for the DAO. If the revenue in the couch cushions were claimed for this period, it would make up nearly 50% of the weekly distribution.

Curve revenues

The Curve DAO generates revenue from trading volumes, and with the release of a stablecoin in May 2023, the Curve DAO now has a second revenue stream with crvUSD.

When trading volumes on Ethereum were at their peak, Curve was bringing in millions of dollars per week. In fact, in June 2022 the Curve DAO made over $4.4 million in a single week.

But as trading volumes subsided, so did the fees generated by Curve. For the week that started on July 5, 2023, Curve generated only $54,000 for the DAO.

Since that low, fees have rebounded, thanks to an increase in trading activity and the growth of crvUSD.

crvUSD has a supply of over $140 million with a total of $5 million in total fees collected for the DAO. There are six different assets users can deposit to borrow crvUSD against, paying a variable borrowing rate between 8.2% and 11.8%.

With trading volumes beginning to pick up, alongside an increase in the crvUSD supply, the total fees generated by Curve are diversified and increasing.

Curve has plans for another revenue stream, with a new lending product.

Details about the lending product are scarce, but the official Curve Finance account stated on social media that users will be able to list any assets with permission.

It is expected that revenue generated by this product will also be earmarked for the Curve DAO.

A poll is being conducted in the CRV Social Channel where users can vote on the name for this product, with “lend.curve.fi” in the lead over the only other option, llamalend.

Disclaimer: The two co-founders of DL News were previously core contributors to the Curve protocol.

Ryan Celaj is DL News’ New York-based Data Correspondent. Reach out with tips at ryan@dlnews.com.