Curve Finance captures 44% of Ethereum DEX fees as activity surges

Curve Finance is back in focus — not because of hype, but because that’s where people are actually paying fees on Ethereum.

Over the past 30 days, Curve captured about 44% of all decentralized exchange (DEX) fees on Ethereum. That’s a huge jump from about 1.6% a year ago.

In simple terms, a lot of real trading activity has moved to Curve.

Ethereum’s DeFi scene is crowded, but most serious volume still comes from stablecoins, ETH pairs, and Bitcoin-linked assets, not short-term trends like memecoins. That makes fee data a strong signal of where real users are trading — and Curve is now right at the center.

Data from DeFiLlama shows Curve pulling in roughly $15.1 million in fees over 30 days. That puts it just behind Uniswap, even though Curve focuses on a narrower set of assets.

This growth isn’t about speculation. It’s about usage.

Two main drivers stand out.

First, trading around crvUSD has grown fast. The stablecoin is seeing heavy use and has become a major source of volume on the platform.

Second, Curve now hosts some of the deepest on-chain Bitcoin liquidity in DeFi. After integrating with Yield Basis, Curve’s Bitcoin pools surged. Three BTC pools now rank at the top in both liquidity depth and total value locked.

It’s important to note that higher fees don’t automatically mean higher profits for the protocol or liquidity providers. Fees show demand, not guaranteed returns. But they do tell us where traders are choosing to go.

Behind the scenes, governance activity continues.

The Curve DAO recently rejected a proposal to give 17.4 million CRV tokens — worth about $6.2 million — to the development team. A revised version of that proposal is now back on the table. Other proposals to add liquidity incentives to new and existing pools are also active.

Curve has also expanded to new networks like X Layer and Plasma, growing its reach beyond Ethereum. At the same time, crvUSD adoption keeps rising, strengthening Curve’s role as core infrastructure for stablecoin swaps and yield strategies.

The bigger picture is clear.

Traders are moving toward protocols that offer steady activity, deep liquidity, and simple mechanics, instead of chasing short-term excitement. Curve fits that mold — and the data now proves it.

Quietly, without hype, Curve has become one of the most important places to trade on Ethereum again.