The contrast between declining deposits and rising activity defined Curve's Week 20 report. TVL fell 2.6% from the prior week, with the DEX component dropping harder at 4.3% to roughly $1.9 billion. Llamalend, the protocol's onchain lending arm, held steadier at $191 million, down just 0.6%. Over four weeks, Curve has shed about 4.2% of its deposited value, slipping from $2.09 billion in mid-April. For context, the protocol's TVL peaked above $24 billion during the 2021 DeFi boom.

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Volume and Fee Metrics Tell a Different Story

Despite the TVL retreat, traders were more active. Weekly DEX volume reached $2.28 billion, a 22.3% jump week-over-week, across 269,000 swaps. That activity generated $176,000 in fees, up 10.8%. The top volume pool was sUSDS/USDT, which processed $923 million in trades and contributed $12,100 in fees. The fact that fee income and swap counts are both rising faster than TVL suggests that existing liquidity is being put to harder use rather than sitting idle.

CRV, the protocol's governance token, was trading at approximately $0.28 as of May 14, up 8.5% in 24 hours and 18.5% over the prior seven days, according to CoinGecko. Of the 1.51 billion CRV in circulation, 856 million are locked for governance participation, with 788 million veCRV (vote-escrowed CRV) outstanding. Holders of veCRV received $104,000 in protocol fee distributions this week, a 61.5% increase, at an annualised rate of 2.569%.

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USG Pools Drive the Week's Highest Yields

The standout figures this week come from pools tied to USG, a new stablecoin launched by Tangent Finance. The USDC/USG pool on Ethereum is currently showing 192% APR, and frxUSD/USG shows 184% APR. A third high-yield pool, frxUSD/USP, also shows 184% APR; USP appears to be a distinct stablecoin and its issuer has not been independently confirmed at time of publication.

USG is an overcollateralised stablecoin, meaning each unit is backed by collateral worth more than the stablecoin itself. Unlike crvUSD, which charges borrowers interest, USG offers zero-interest borrowing in certain market types. It accepts productive DeFi assets as collateral, including Curve LP tokens and positions on Pendle and Stake DAO.

Tangent Finance describes USG as a decentralised and over-collateralised stablecoin that leverages DeFi's composability and maximises capital efficiency. Readers should note that these yields reflect an early incentive phase typical of new protocol launches, where high rewards are used to attract initial liquidity. Rates of this magnitude compress quickly as more capital enters, and USG's codebase does not yet carry the multi-year track record of more established protocols. Tangent Finance was formerly associated with the Convergence protocol, which suffered an exploit in August 2024, a background that readers evaluating USG should weigh alongside the yield figures.

Separately, crvUSD, Curve's native stablecoin, has a circulating supply of $65.8 million, up 1.4% on the week, trading at $0.9999. Its Peg Stability Reserves fell sharply to $23.4 million, a drop of $47.4 million. This reflects active use of the PegKeeper mechanism, which automatically manages the stablecoin's price peg. Heavy drawdowns in those reserves can signal either productive arbitrage activity or early stress and are worth watching in coming weeks.

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Governance Moves: FXSwap Update and Llamalend Cleanup

Two governance actions are in motion. A live vote would approve updated pool logic for FXSwap, Curve's onchain foreign exchange module designed for fiat currency pairs. The protocol stated the changes make pools "more efficient and less leaky to arbitrage bots." FXSwap is already in live deployment: its inaugural pool pairs ZCHF with crvUSD on Ethereum, where early LP yields have reached up to 100% APR. Its roadmap includes pilots for the Indonesian rupiah and Brazilian real, both Global South currencies central to Curve's emerging-market FX strategy.

Risk management firm LlamaRisk has also proposed retiring broken or inactive Llamalend V1 markets ahead of the anticipated launch of Llamalend V2, expected within the next few months. The cleanup follows a separate April proposal by Curve's founder to address roughly $700,000 in outstanding bad debt in the V1 system. LlamaRisk has described V2 as a system that will "shift risk management from periodic review toward continuous monitoring and proactive intervention."

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Why This Matters Outside the US

Curve's metrics carry particular weight in India, ranked first on the 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index with an estimated 119 million crypto users. Indian retail participants lead globally in DeFi value received, making protocol-level yield data directly relevant. In Sub-Saharan Africa, stablecoin volumes grew more than 180% year-over-year, with Nigeria ranked second globally and Ethiopia ranking fifth globally in retail DeFi received. For users in these regions who rely on stablecoins as dollar savings vehicles or remittance tools, Curve pools offer onchain yield well above what local savings instruments provide; Indian bank fixed deposits, for instance, typically yield 6 to 7% in INR. FXSwap's low transaction costs, around $0.002 on Polygon, make it credible at remittance scale.

With Llamalend V2 approaching and FXSwap expanding its currency coverage, the protocol is positioning for broader utility beyond Ethereum-native stablecoin swaps. Whether TVL stabilises or continues drifting will depend partly on how quickly USG pools normalise and whether the crvUSD reserve drawdown reverses.