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CRV Overview

The CRV token is the token for Curve DAO which governs the whole Curve Finance ecosystem. CRV was launched on August 13, 2020.

Supply

The total supply of 3.03 billion is distributed as such:

  • 62% to community liquidity providers
  • 30% to shareholders (team and investors) with 2-4 years vesting
  • 5% to the community reserve
  • 3% to employees with 2 years vesting


The initial supply of around 1.3b (~43%) was distributed as such:

  • 5% to pre-CRV liquidity providers with 1 year vesting
  • 30% to shareholders (team and investors) with 2-4 years vesting
  • 3% to employees with 2 years vesting
  • 5% to the community reserve

The circulating supply was 0 at launch and the initial release rate was around 2m CRV per day.

CRV inflation (community emissions for providing liquidity) started at 274 million tokens a year in 2020, and each year it decreases by roughly 16%.

See the Supply & Distribution page for more detailed information.

Utility

There are 4 main use-cases for CRV, most require locked CRV (veCRV):

  1. Incentivizing liquidity providers to provide liquidity to pools and lending markets through CRV rewards. This is how CRV tokens are distributed to the community.
  2. Allowing liquidity providers to boost their CRV rewards up to 2.5x by holding veCRV.
  3. Allowing users to participate and vote in governance proposals including directing CRV emissions (gauge weight votes) through holding veCRV.
  4. Collecting a portion of the fees from swaps and loans that occur on Curve through holding veCRV.

Info

veCRV stands for vote-escrowed CRV, representing CRV tokens locked for voting in the Curve DAO. Locked CRV, Vote-locked CRV and vote-escrowed CRV all mean veCRV, these terms are used interchangeably throughout the ecosystem.

For information about how to lock see the locking guide, or for more information about veCRV, see the veCRV page.

The CRV Matrix

The table below can help you understand the value of CRV and veCRV in different situations:

CRV Matrix