Coin columns · Ethereum City (Capital)
crvUSD: Curve’s Own Crypto-Backed Dollar Stablecoin
A dollar coin built on Curve’s ‘soft liquidations’
crvUSD is a US-dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by the decentralized exchange Curve. Users create it by borrowing against crypto collateral, and an on-chain algorithm, not a bank deposit, works to keep it near one dollar.
1. Curve’s own collateral-backed stablecoin
Curve, founded by Michael Egorov, is a decentralized exchange specialized in swapping similar-value assets such as stablecoins at low cost. crvUSD is the stablecoin of the Curve DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), launched on Ethereum in May 2023. It is designed to track the US dollar 1:1, but it is backed by crypto collateral such as ETH and BTC-linked tokens, not by bank deposits.
Policy and collateral types are set by votes of CRV holders, who lock CRV for voting power (veCRV). On the Crypto Nation map, crvUSD stands in Ethereum City (the capital), because it was first issued on Ethereum.
2. Soft liquidation and PegKeepers
To get crvUSD, users deposit collateral such as ETH and borrow against it. Ordinary loans are force-sold all at once when collateral falls below a line; crvUSD uses LLAMMA (Lending-Liquidating AMM Algorithm), which gradually converts collateral into crvUSD as its price falls and converts it back if the price recovers, a ‘soft liquidation’.
Other tools hold the peg. An algorithm adjusts the borrowing rate based on crvUSD’s price, and ‘PegKeepers’ (contracts that add or remove crvUSD in Curve pools) pull the market price toward $1. A savings token, scrvUSD, passes borrowers’ interest to depositors.
3. The dollar of the Curve ecosystem
crvUSD trades in Curve pools beside other stablecoins and is used in Curve’s lending service, LlamaLend. Curve says follow-on projects such as Yield Basis, also by Egorov, borrow crvUSD and keep creating demand for it.
Key points: launch in May 2023 and the announcement of LlamaLend V2 on 10 June 2026. In V2, any supported asset can sit on either side of a market with DAO approval, so crvUSD is no longer required, and each market is isolated from the others. Curve said crvUSD held its peg through the market decline of May–June 2026.
4. Things to know
crvUSD’s stability depends on collateral prices, oracles (feeds that deliver outside prices) and smart contracts all working. In sharp falls, soft liquidation keeps selling collateral and losses can occur: after the October 2025 crash, some lenders in a LlamaLend market using CRV as collateral had impaired claims, and a recovery pool opened in May 2026. Exploits of outside tokens also hit some lending markets in March and May 2026.
Control rests with Curve DAO votes, so governance can concentrate among large holders, and the system shares smart contract risk with the wider Curve ecosystem; in July 2023 several Curve pools were hacked through a compiler flaw. Holding a $1 peg is never guaranteed.
Written from information public up to October 2026. It does not recommend or rate any coin and is not investment advice. If something is wrong, please tell us through the contact page.