Curve Finance ended Week 29, 2026 with $1.538 billion in total value locked, a 7.7% rise from the previous week and the largest single-week percentage increase the protocol has recorded in several months. That figure represents roughly 6% of Curve's 2022 TVL peak above $24 billion, illustrating where the protocol stands in its recovery arc. The jump accompanied a governance proposal, published July 16, to activate two new markets on Ethereum mainnet under Llamalend V2, the protocol's substantially redesigned lending layer. Weekly DEX volume reached $874 million, up 8.2%, while the protocol collected $260,000 in fees over the same period.

Llamalend V2 Comes to Ethereum

Llamalend V2 was first deployed on Optimism in June 2026, supported by a 250,000 OP token incentive package. The Ethereum mainnet proposal targets two initial markets: sDOLA-crvUSD and sfrxUSD-crvUSD. Both launch with borrow caps set to zero; a DAO governance vote lasting approximately seven days is required before any borrowing can be activated. Each market is reviewed by LlamaRisk, Curve's designated risk assessment arm, before reaching a governance vote.

The V2 architecture differs from its predecessor in several important ways. V1 required crvUSD on one side of every lending market. V2 removes that restriction, allowing any DAO-approved asset to serve as collateral or as the borrowed token. Curve LP tokens, including yield-bearing and principal tokens, can now be posted as collateral, meaning liquidity providers can earn trading fees while simultaneously borrowing against their position. Liquidations continue to use the LLAMMA mechanism, which spreads the process across a price range rather than triggering a single-price forced sale, giving borrowers more time to respond to market moves.

Curve Finance described the change plainly in its launch documentation: "Range-based liquidation protection is now available for all supported assets by default."

The sDOLA market carries notable history. On March 2, 2026, an attacker used a flash loan to manipulate the sDOLA price oracle on an earlier version of the lending market, triggering hard liquidations for 27 active borrowers. Curve published a post-mortem on its governance forum at the time. The sfrxUSD market was assessed as not vulnerable to the same attack vector. The current proposal for both markets under V2 reflects Curve's position that the updated architecture addresses the oracle weaknesses that made the March exploit possible.

Yields This Week: Context Matters

The three highest-yielding pools on Curve this week, among pools with at least $100,000 in TVL, are the frxUSD/USP pool on Ethereum (above 100%), apxUSD/USDC on Ethereum (74.1%), and crvUSD/fxSAVE on Ethereum via Llamalend (26.7%). fxSAVE is a yield-bearing token integrated into Curve's Llamalend V2 EMAMonetaryPolicy framework. These are unboosted base rates; higher returns are accessible through platforms such as Convex, StakeDAO, and Yearn.

The frxUSD/USP yield above 100% reflects early bootstrapping incentives. Frax USD is backed by tokenised US Treasury products from BlackRock, WisdomTree, and Superstate. USP is the stablecoin of Piku DAO, which struck a co-incentive agreement with Frax to seed liquidity over an eight-week window, with each party contributing daily token emissions. That arrangement is what is driving the outsized rate, not the underlying asset yield.

The apxUSD/USDC pool at 74.1% carries a significant risk profile. apxUSD is a synthetic dollar from Apyx Finance, backed by preferred shares of Digital Asset Treasury companies, primarily STRC shares. The token depegged to $0.90 on June 4, 2026, and fell further to $0.78 on June 25, following a decline in STRC share values. An independent on-chain review found that the pool's liquidity is overwhelmingly provided by Apyx Finance itself. The yield is high because the risk is high. Readers with limited capital should treat this pool with caution.

Why the Borrow Rate Drop Matters Outside the US

The average crvUSD borrow rate fell to 2.3% this week, down from 3.3% the previous week. This is the lowest recorded rate for crvUSD in 2026. The decline is linked to a $7.2 million build in the Peg Stabilisation Reserve, which now holds $33.8 million. A larger reserve tends to reduce borrow rates by expanding the buffer that keeps crvUSD near its $1 peg. Curve founder Michael Egorov has separately proposed using a three-week exponential moving average for the reserve's debt ratio, which would dampen short-term rate spikes.

The scrvUSD savings rate stood at 1.2% this week, down 2.7 percentage points from the prior week. For users in countries where local currency depreciation outpaces domestic savings account returns, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a USD-denominated on-chain savings rate of this kind represents a structurally different option from what local banks offer.

For users in South Asia and Africa, 2.3% is a meaningfully different cost of capital than what is available through informal lending channels. Informal borrowing rates in rural Bangladesh and parts of India can exceed 15 to 25% annually. Borrowing against crypto collateral at 2.3% carries its own risks, including smart contract exposure and liquidation, but the structural cost difference is real.

Curve is also piloting FXSwap, a new pool type designed to enable direct foreign currency swaps with tighter spreads than conventional conversion routes. FXSwap initially supports pairs including the Brazilian real, Indonesian rupiah, British pound, Australian dollar, Korean won, and USDT. If the model extends to South Asian currencies such as the Indian rupee or Bangladeshi taka, it could meaningfully reduce conversion costs on remittance corridors. Intra-African bank remittances currently average 7 to 9% per transaction, compared to 1 to 3% across mobile money and crypto rails, according to CryptoTimes analysis.

Curve's potential reach into African markets extends beyond yield rates. The VALR-Onafriq integration, launched April 9, 2026, enables local currency deposits in Kenyan shillings, Zambian kwacha, and Tanzanian shillings, using USDC as an intermediary before funds reach Curve pools. Africa's mobile money infrastructure spans approximately 1 billion wallets across 43 markets, providing substantial potential distribution for on-chain financial products. Countries including Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe, where domestic inflation erodes local savings, represent the clearest use cases for USD-denominated on-chain instruments.

What Comes Next

The immediate governance calendar centres on the sDOLA and sfrxUSD market votes on Ethereum. In parallel, a Curve DAO proposal is seeking 17.45 million CRV tokens (approximately $6.7 million at current prices) for Swiss Stake AG, the firm that has led Curve's core development since 2020. That budget would fund a 25-person team through the remainder of 2026, covering Llamalend V2, FXSwap development, crvUSD upgrades, and multi-chain governance infrastructure, with semi-annual financial disclosures and quarterly technical updates required in return. CRV was trading at $0.2133 at time of publication, down 3.6% in the prior 24 hours.