Curve debates 60M crvUSD pre-mint for Yield Basis amid governance pushback
Supporters call the proposal a credit line to scale crvUSD, but critics warn it could set a dangerous precedent
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A proposal to pre-mint 60 million crvUSD to bootstrap Curve’s new Yield Basis AMM is sparking debate across the governance forum and social media, raising deeper questions about the DAO’s authority, risk management, and how to safely scale the protocol’s stablecoin footprint.
Yield Basis, led by Curve founder Michael Egorov, is a new Curve-native AMM that uses constant leverage to eliminate impermanent loss in Bitcoin pools. To launch its first three pools — wBTC, cbBTC and tBTC — Yield Basis is asking for a 60 million crvUSD allocation, which it says would be borrowed and paired with BTC to create LP positions on Curve without selling the stablecoin into the market.
CrvUSD currently has a market cap of about $127 million, placing it around the 25th-largest stablecoin. Among decentralized stablecoins, however, it’s the third-largest behind USDS/DAI and GHO.
Proponents argue the Yield Basis design solves a key bottleneck for scaling crvUSD: demand-side absorption.
“In a way, the pre‑mint is just a borrowing cap,” community member Llamaste wrote, since crvUSD is paired with BTC inside Curve pools rather than sold. Other backers compare the mechanism to Curve’s existing PegKeepers, which also hold pre-allocated crvUSD that doesn’t count toward circulating supply.
But some are more skeptical.
TokenBrice, a builder of the DeFi transparency tool DeFiScan, called it “a proposal suggesting to mint out-of-thin-air, unbacked, 60M crvUSD,” adding that this kind of “upgradability risk” contributed to Curve’s “Stage 0” rating in DeFiScan’s decentralization framework. That designation reflects Curve’s powerful DAO permissions, including the ability to arbitrarily mint crvUSD or assign control of key contracts.
Curve contributor Saint Rat, who helped draft Curve’s DeFiScan profile, defended the DAO’s structure but acknowledged the optics.
“The Curve DAO could choose to mint $1 trillion crvUSD… but that would kill the DAO,” they wrote. Still, perception matters.
One way to contain the risk: structure the ask more explicitly as a credit line. Multiple governance commenters, including benoxmo, krypthye, and Saint Rat, have called for a capped, on-demand facility that only mints crvUSD when needed, with explicit per-pool limits and a kill-switch controlled by DAO governance.
Risk mitigation remains a core concern. The June 2025 Resupply exploit, which led to nearly $10 million in losses due to a “donation attack” on a crvUSD-adjacent vault, was cited by several participants.
“[Resupply] was audited, yet a vulnerability was missed,” Saint Rat warned, asking what backstops would exist if Yield Basis is exploited while holding an active crvUSD balance.
In response, Yield Basis contributor ybllama said the system has undergone six audits and is currently running a Sherlock contest. They reiterated that crvUSD is only minted when BTC is deposited, and that caps would be enforced at launch.
Still, the proposal as written does not include a first-loss insurance vault or an explicit risk fee paid to the DAO for underwriting systemic exposure. Several in the thread are now urging those additions, alongside telemetry dashboards and staged rollout — for instance, starting with WBTC only.
Yield Basis is being launched as a separate protocol with its own token (YB), which also raises some hackles, given that crvUSD bears the systemic exposure. Supporters counter that Curve will receive a portion of YB emissions to use for vote incentives in crvUSD/USDC and crvUSD/USDT pools, which should reinforce liquidity and fee generation for veCRV holders.
Yield Basis may offer a novel way to scale crvUSD, but several commenters argued that if Curve bears so much risk, the governance structure must evolve to reflect that. With veCRV voting power already fragmented across liquid lockers and participation trending low on high-stakes votes, the outcome may hinge on whether the proposal is revised to include stricter constraints and safety levers.
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