Curve Finance’s crvUSD stablecoin deployed on Sepolia testnet ahead of Ethereum mainnet launch

The developers of decentralized exchange Curve Finance deployed smart contracts for decentralized stablecoin crvUSD on the Sepolia testnet today.

Sepolia serves as one of the two main testnets employed by Ethereum developers for testing code prior to mainnet deployment. Specifically, this code was deployed for the purpose of testing the token’s verification on Ethereum block explorer Etherscan, according to a comment made on GitHub.

Created in 2020, Curve is the largest decentralized exchange focused on swapping stablecoins with reduced slippage and minimal fees. It has more than $4.2 billion locked on its platform across its markets that run over 12 blockchains. The Sepolia deployment signals that the team is getting closer toward a mainnet release of its platform and stablecoin.

The stablecoin’s design

Curve founder Michael Egorov initially revealed that the team was working on developing a native stablecoin in July 2022. Subsequently, in November 2022, Curve developers published its white paper and initial code.

The stalecoin will be pegged to the U.S. dollar and feature a token design akin to that of MakerDAO’s DAI stablecoin. That means it will be overcollateralized by supported crypto assets exceeding the value of the crvUSD users wish to mint.

Additionally, the stablecoin will rely on a new algorithm called Lending-Liquidating AMM (LLAMMA). This continuously liquidates and automatically deposits collateral to manage the risk associated with the stablecoin, while maintaining its peg to the U.S. dollar, according to its whitepaper.

Being developed by one of the most-widely used DeFi protocols — one that’s heavily focused on stablecoins — crvUSD has a chance at finding adoption. But it will enter a highly competitive field, currently dominated by centralized stablecoins like USDT and USDC, which account for $81 billion and $30 billion respectively, of the $131.2 billion total stablecoin market. DAI, the closest stablecoin in design to crvUSD, has a $4.7 billion market capitalization.

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