Curve Finance, a decentralized liquidity protocol focused on efficient stablecoin and low-volatility asset trading, closed 2025 with broadly stable trading activity and a growing share of Ethereum DEX fee generation.
Despite significant market fluctuations throughout the year, the protocol recorded $122.3 billion in trading volume, up from $119.3 billion in 2024. Total value locked (TVL) experienced natural cyclical movement, entering the year with approximately $2.44B, reaching a yearly peak of around $2.86B in August 2025, and closing the year at roughly $2.22B.
User activity continued to expand alongside liquidity depth. In Q4 2025, Curve Finance recorded 51.8K active users, compared to 20.5K in Q4 2024, reflecting a 152% year-over-year increase. Since 2021, the number of unique active users interacting with the protocol has increased more than fourfold.
Curve Finance’s position within Ethereum’s DEX ecosystem also strengthened over the year. According to DefiLlama data, the protocol accounted for approximately 44% of Ethereum DEX fees in December 2025, up from around 1.6% at the start of the year, placing it among the largest contributors to on-chain trading fee generation.
This activity translated into sustained protocol revenue. Over the course of 2025, Curve Finance generated $13.6 million in fees distributed to veCRV governance participants, reflecting a model focused on capital efficiency rather than short-term incentive programs.
Liquidity composition on Curve Finance also shifted toward larger, more capital-intensive pools. In 2025, 1,758 new pools were launched, slightly above 2024 levels. More importantly, pools exceeding $100,000 in size grew by 17% year-over-year, while pools above $1 million increased by 41%. This shift suggests fewer speculative launches and more serious, capital-intensive use cases coming on-chain.
“Stablecoins are increasingly evolving beyond a crypto-native use case into foundational financial infrastructure,” said Michael Egorov, Founder of Curve Finance. “Over the next decade, we expect liquidity, risk management, and market structure to move increasingly on-chain, with neutral protocols like Curve providing the rails that connect issuers, applications, and users across currencies and jurisdictions”.
Looking ahead, Curve expects stablecoins to play an expanding role across payments, treasury operations, FX-style markets, and on-chain credit, with decentralized liquidity protocols forming part of the underlying market infrastructure supporting these use cases.