Curve (DeFi Asset Management Company)

Curve achieves extremely efficient stablecoin trades by implementing the StableSwap invariant, which has significantly lower slippage for stablecoin trades than many other prominent invariants (e.g., constant-product). Note that in this context stablecoins refers to tokens that are stable representations of one another. This includes, for example, USD-pegged stablecoins (like DAI and USDC), but also ETH and sETH (synthetic ETH) or different versions of wrapped BTC. For a detailed overview of the StableSwap invariant design, please read the official StableSwap whitepaper.

A Curve pool is essentially a smart contract that implements the StableSwap invariant and therefore contains the logic for exchanging stable tokens. However, while all Curve pools implement the StableSwap invariant, they may come in different pool flavors.

In its simplest form, a Curve pool is an implementation of the StableSwap invariant with 2 or more tokens, which can be referred to as a plain pool. Alternative and more complex pool flavors include pools with lending functionality, so-called lending pools, as well as metapools, which are pools that allow for the exchange of one or more tokens with the tokens of one or more underlying base pools.

Curve also integrates with Synthetix to offer cross-asset swaps.

All exchange functionality that Curve supports, as well as noteworthy implementation details, are explained in technical depth in this section.

Curve Finance Exchange is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that launched in the "DeFi Year" of 2020.

In order to use Curve Finance Exchange you need to have one of the following wallets. The platform is only possible to use if you connect your wallet to the platform.

DEXs are becoming increasingly more popular, mostly due to the following factors:

• They do not require a third party to store your funds, instead, you are always directly in control of your coins and you transact directly with whoever wants to buy or sell your coins.
• They normally do not require you to give out personal info. This makes it possible to create an account and right away be able to start trading.
• Their servers spread out across the globe leading to a lower risk of server downtime.
• They are essentially immune to hacker attacks.

However, DEXs normally have an order book with lower liquidity than their centralized counterparts.

As for Curve Finance Exchange, on the date of first writing this review (19 February 2021), the 24 hour trading volume was USD 76.8 million (according to information from coinmarketcap.com). On the date of last updating this review (2 December 2021), this trading volume was USD 156 million.

Why do so many exchanges not allow US citizens to open accounts with them? The answer has only three letters. S, E and C (the Securities Exchange Commission). The reason the SEC is so scary is because the US does not allow foreign companies to solicit US investors, unless those foreign companies are also registered in the US (with the SEC). If foreign companies solicit US investors anyway, the SEC can sue them. There are many examples of when the SEC has sued crypto exchanges, one of which being when they sued EtherDelta for operating an unregistered exchange. Another example was when they sued Bitfinex and claimed that the stablecoin Tether (USDT) was misleading investors. It is very likely that more cases will follow.

Decentralized exchanges are different beings than the abovementioned examples. They never have custody of any user assets. They normally don't accept any fiat currency. As such, they are less scary for regulating authorities and the same reasons to prohibit citizens from certain countries to use them can't be applied. Accordingly, we have marked Curve Finance Exchange as "allowing US-investors" in our database.

Every trading platform has a trading view. The trading view is the part of the exchange’s website where you can see the price chart of a certain cryptocurrency and what its current price is. There are normally also buy and sell boxes, where you can place orders with respect to the relevant crypto, and, at most platforms, you will also be able to see the order history (i.e., previous transactions involving the relevant crypto). Everything in the same view on your desktop. There are of course also variations to what we have now described. This is the trading interface at Curve Finance Exchange:

As you can see from the above picture of the trading interface, you essentially trade between different liquidity pools. The following list includes the most popular liquidity pools that you can use for trading purposes on Curve Finance Exchange:

When it comes to centralized exchanges, many of them charge what we call taker fees, from the takers, and what we call maker fees, from the makers. Takers are the people removing liquidity from the order book by accepting already placed orders, and makers are the ones placing those orders. The main alternative to this is to simply charge “flat” fees. Flat fees mean that the exchange charges the taker and the maker the same fee.

When it comes to decentralized exchanges, many of them don't charge any trading fees at all. This is in fact one of the big arguments that DEX-supporters use to explain why centralized exchanges are on their way out.

To the best of our knowledge, Curve Finance Exchange belongs to the group of DEXs that does not charge any trading fees.

To our understanding, Curve Finance Exchange does - like most decentralized exchanges - not charge any transfer fees or withdrawal fees other than the network fees. The network fees are fees paid to the miners of the relevant crypto/blockchain, and not fees paid to the exchange itself. Network fees vary from day to day depending on the network pressure.

Generally speaking, to only have to pay the network fees should be considered as below global industry average when it comes to fee levels for crypto withdrawals (if you include all exchanges, both DEXs and CEXs in the data set).

Curve Finance Exchange does not – like all (or at least close to all) other DEXs – accept any deposits of fiat currency. This means that crypto investors without any previous crypto holdings can’t trade at this trading platform.

In order to purchase your first cryptos, you need a so called entry-level exchange, which is an exchange accepting deposits of fiat currency. Find one by using our Exchange Finder!

The servers of DEXs normally spread out across the globe. This is different from centralized exchanges that normally have their servers more concentrated. This spread-out of servers leads to a lower risk of server downtime and also means that DEXs are virtually immune to attacks. This is because if you take out one of the servers, it has little to no impact on the full network. However, if you manage to get into a server at a centralized exchange, you can do a lot more harm.

Also, if you make a trade at a DEX, the exchange itself never touches your assets. Accordingly, even if a hacker would somehow be able to hack the exchange (in spite of the above), the hacker can not access your assets. If you make a trade at a centralized exchange, however, you normally hold assets at that exchange. That is, until you withdraw them to your private wallet. A centralized exchange can therefore be hacked and your funds held at such exchange can be stolen. This is not the case with respect to decentralized exchanges.