Curve (Ethereum)

What Is Curve Finance?

Curve Finance is a decentralized liquidity pool for stablecoin trading. Instead of an order book, it uses an AMM (automated market maker) model to match liquidity. As a decentralized and permissionless protocol, anyone can provide liquidity to one or more of the liquidity pools. The constant product formula of the AMM ensures maximum efficiency while incurring a minimum of slippage for traders.

The Curve pools are smart contracts implementing the StableSwap invariant and enabling the exchange of two or more tokens. Token swaps can be performed between paired stablecoins (Plain Pools) or between wrapped tokens, with the underlying collateral lent out on another protocol (Lending Pools). Finally, Metapools pair stablecoins against LP-tokens from another pool.

The protocol is available multi-chain — on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Aurora, Avalanche, Fantom, Harmony, Optimism, Polygon, xDai and Moonbeam. Users typically have to bridge funds from Ethereum to these chains to use the Curve protocol. Due to its systemic importance for decentralized finance (DeFi), the protocol has attracted several other protocols fighting over its governance in the so-called Curve Wars.