Curve Finance closed Week 39 with higher lending activity, increased crvUSD borrowing fees and a new fee structure for one of its major Tricrypto pools. According to Curve’s official Week 39 metrics report, published with data through September 24, Llamalend TVL reached $272 million while crvUSD mint-market debt increased to $77.4 million. The latest snapshot shows activity shifting across lending, incentives and fee generation rather than a single pool dominating protocol performance.
Selected stablecoin yields remained heavily influenced by incentives. Curve highlighted sUSG/reUSD at a modeled 16.0% APR and frxUSD/sUSDai at 14.0%, while crvUSD supplied against svZCHF produced 5.7% in Llamalend. These figures model specific positions and can change as liquidity, rewards and borrowing conditions move. The advertised APRs are variable snapshots, not guaranteed future returns, and several combine trading income with token incentives.
Llamalend and crvUSD Activity Move Higher
Llamalend TVL increased 8.1% week over week to $272 million, while borrowed assets rose 4.4% to $148 million and collateral climbed 10% to $248 million. Supplied assets, by contrast, were almost unchanged at $94 million. The divergence shows that TVL growth came primarily from higher collateral and borrowing rather than a broad increase in supplied lending capital.
crvUSD also expanded. Mint-market debt rose 5.6% to $77.4 million, with the weighted average borrowing rate at 3.7% APY. PegKeeper debt increased sharply by 14.87 million crvUSD to 22.70 million, while weekly mint-borrowing fees reached $52,200, up 20%. Higher debt and fees indicate increased use of the minting system, but neither metric alone establishes greater profitability across the entire Curve protocol.
Earlier September data illustrated how incentives can reshape individual pool economics. The USDe/USDT pool previously processed $38.1 million in weekly volume despite holding roughly $1 million of liquidity after receiving additional CRV incentives. That Week 36 result demonstrated unusually high turnover relative to liquidity, but it should not be carried forward as a Week 39 performance metric.
Fee Policy Becomes Another Routing Lever
Curve also completed a higher-fee configuration for TricryptoUSDC. Governance analysis behind the change modeled more than twice the swap-fee generation despite an estimated 46% reduction in volume, because the higher average fee was expected to outweigh fewer trades. The change explicitly trades some expected turnover for potentially higher fee income per unit of activity. Actual LP and DAO revenue will need to be measured after the new parameters operate under live market conditions.
The episode reinforces why volume should remain separate from revenue and liquidity. Robinhood Chain briefly generated $61.9 million in weekly Curve DEX volume during an August spike, alongside unusually high protocol revenue from a small liquidity base, but that activity later fell sharply. Short bursts of turnover can make a deployment appear exceptionally capital-efficient without establishing a durable weekly baseline.
Curve’s DAO metrics also moved independently. veCRV distributions rose 27.1% to $116,200, while weekly gauge allocation declined 1.51% to 1.83 million CRV, worth approximately $606,200 at the snapshot. Week 39 therefore illustrates why Curve performance is better assessed through several indicators at once: debt, collateral, fees, liquidity, incentives and distributions can all move in different directions. That broader distinction between TVL, utilization and protocol financial health remains particularly relevant for incentive-driven DeFi markets.
The next concrete milestone is the first full-week data under TricryptoUSDC’s completed fee settings. Observed trading volume, LP fees and DAO revenue will show whether the higher-fee configuration produces the modeled economic improvement without driving away more trading activity than expected.
Natalie Pierce tracks the parts of crypto that move fast and rarely wait for everyone to catch up. From South Africa, she covers DeFi, AI crypto, hacks, airdrops, sentiment and emerging narratives, especially when user behavior and protocol risk start to overlap.
Her reporting is built for messy sectors. Natalie looks at incentives, reactions, security concerns, social momentum and early signs of traction without pretending every new trend is already proven. Her voice is clear and accessible, but careful enough for areas where excitement can outrun the facts very quickly.