Curve
Curve (Curve Finance) is a decentralized exchange, not a mathematical or fashion term. It is an automated market maker specialized for assets that should trade near the same price — stablecoins like USDC and DAI, and pegged assets like stETH and ETH — using a StableSwap formula that delivers very low slippage and low fees for those swaps. Launched in January 2020 by Michael Egorov, it became a core piece of DeFi's stablecoin plumbing, widely used by other protocols. Curve is non-custodial and governed by holders of its CRV token through the Curve DAO.
What Curve Finance is
“Curve” here means Curve Finance, a decentralized exchange — not the geometry term or the fashion brand. It is an automated market maker built for a specific job: swapping assets that are meant to hold the same value, such as one stablecoin for another (USDC to DAI) or a staked token against its base asset (stETH against ETH). Its StableSwap formula concentrates liquidity around the peg, so these trades get far lower slippage and fees than a general-purpose AMM. Curve launched in January 2020, founded by Michael Egorov, and is non-custodial and governed by holders of the CRV token through the Curve DAO.
How Curve's stablecoin AMM works
Ordinary AMMs price two tokens along a curve that assumes their value can range widely, which wastes capital and adds slippage when the two are actually supposed to be equal. Curve's math blends a constant-sum and constant-product model so liquidity clusters tightly around a 1:1 price, giving deep, cheap swaps for pegged assets. Liquidity providers deposit into pools (often several stablecoins at once) and earn trading fees plus CRV incentives. Because so much of DeFi needs to move between stablecoins and staked assets efficiently, other protocols route through Curve, making it foundational stablecoin infrastructure. Curve has also expanded into a broader product set, including its own crvUSD stablecoin.
Is Curve safe?
Curve's contracts are widely used and audited, but it has been exploited. In July 2023, several Curve pools were drained for roughly $70M at peak — not because of Curve's own code, but because of a reentrancy bug in specific older versions of the Vyper compiler the pools were written in. It was one of DeFi's most consequential compiler-level failures. A large share was recovered: white-hat hackers and MEV operators front-ran or returned funds, and the attacker returned a portion, so by early August about 73% (roughly $52M) had been returned, leaving a smaller net loss.
Beyond that event, the usual DeFi risks apply: smart-contract risk, the complexity of Curve's pool and tokenomics design, and depeg risk in the assets a pool holds — if a stablecoin in a pool loses its peg, liquidity providers absorb the imbalance. Phishing sites impersonating Curve and malicious approval prompts are the common user-side ways to lose funds; confirm the official domain and review what you sign.
Incident record
A reentrancy bug in specific older versions of the Vyper compiler (0.2.15, 0.2.16, 0.3.0) left several Curve pools exploitable, and attackers drained roughly $70M at peak. The flaw was in the compiler, not Curve's pool logic itself. White-hat hackers, MEV operators and the attacker returned a large share, with about 73% (~$52M) recovered by early August 2023.
In our ratings
Where we score Curve against its peers on open data. The number lives there, not here.
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Frequently asked
Is Curve safe?+
Curve's contracts are widely used and audited, but in July 2023 several pools were drained for about $70M due to a reentrancy bug in older versions of the Vyper compiler — not Curve's own logic. Most funds were returned by white-hats and the attacker (roughly 73% by early August). Beyond that, expect standard DeFi risks: smart-contract risk, pool complexity, stablecoin depeg risk, and phishing.
Was Curve hacked?+
Yes. On July 30, 2023, several Curve pools were exploited for about $70M at peak. The root cause was a reentrancy vulnerability in specific older Vyper compiler versions the pools used, not Curve's pool code itself. White-hat hackers, MEV bots and the attacker returned a large portion — around 73% (~$52M) recovered by early August.
What is Curve used for?+
Curve is a decentralized exchange specialized for swapping stablecoins and other assets meant to hold the same value, with very low slippage and fees thanks to its StableSwap formula. Liquidity providers earn fees and CRV rewards, and many other DeFi protocols route through Curve, making it core stablecoin infrastructure.
What changed
- 2026-09-28Profile created: what Curve Finance is (disambiguated from the math/fashion senses), how its StableSwap AMM works, and the safety picture — the July 2023 Vyper-compiler reentrancy exploit (~$70M, ~73% recovered), plus DeFi-inherent and phishing risks.