# The Curve War By [andywan](https://paragraph.com/@andywan) · 2022-01-06 --- [https://twitter.com/mattdorta/status/1476226237051940864](https://twitter.com/mattdorta/status/1476226237051940864) "The Curve War" is the most interesting narrative in crypto at the moment. Tens of billions in TVL, bribing for votes, early protocols battling for liquidity. **Liquidity Is King**. For early protocols, the most important and most difficult problem to solve is **generating liquidity for your token**. If market participants (primarily whales) cannot easily move in and out of your token with low slippage...your odds of success are low. The undisputed **king of DeFi liquidity is Curve**. Curve is the largest DeFi protocol in the market with over $22 billion in TVL across 7 chains. If you want liquidity for your token (especially stables) - having a relevant pool on Curve is important. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/68c22d7b899fd9790a419734f3dc4099ab104b93fa7ceabf77f8999c439ce197.png) But what drives liquidity on Curve? **Liquidity Incentives** - users want to provide liquidity to the pools with the best returns. Who controls how incentives are distributed on Curve? **Owners of** [**$CRV**](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24CRV&src=cashtag_click)**.** So what is happening? Other **DeFi apps, whales, and protocols** are accumulating as much [$CRV](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24CRV&src=cashtag_click) as possible to be able to **control the vote** on **which pools should receive liquidity incentives.** How big has this game become? Well... The third biggest DeFi protocol in the market by TVL is literally a project with the sole focus of accumulating as much [$CRV](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24CRV&src=cashtag_click) as possible to control the vote. Convex now owns ~51% of the circulating supply of [$CRV](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24CRV&src=cashtag_click). ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/96e32e582968e7f16549a1f8bada4d56292d465a69935de20e29aa1a7d668b85.png) So what happens now? Early stage tokens who need liquidity **"bribe" the Convex** Community to vote with their [$CRV](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24CRV&src=cashtag_click) to direct liquidity incentives to their pool. **If successful -> higher APY for your pool -> more liquidity -> increased likelihood of success for your token.** And who is bribing? All relevant projects, especially stablecoins, who understand the importance of having liquid pools on Ethereum. Notably [$SPELL](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24SPELL&src=cashtag_click) for [$MIM](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24MIM&src=cashtag_click), [$LUNA](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24LUNA&src=cashtag_click) for [$UST](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24UST&src=cashtag_click), and [$FRAX](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24FRAX&src=cashtag_click) are paying millions of dollars for votes. Where do we go from here? My general thought is the Curve War only intensifies as we move into a **multi-chain future.** 1. **Curve is going multi-chain -> more reason for wars.** 2. Tokens non-native to Ethereum still desire liquidity on Ethereum. And who else is relevant in The Curve Wars? 1. $BTRFLY @redactedcartel * an $OHM fork creating a blackhole for accumulating $CRV and $CVX to compete in the War. 1. $YFI @iearnfinance * with a new tokenomics model, stakers will receive more control in directing incentives. [https://mirror.xyz/0xE90c74145245B498fef924fAdC7bb34253c7cF90/dxkKXGReQTPO60gCZumzd2oMSMeGs65GPU0dx6AY3rc](https://mirror.xyz/0xE90c74145245B498fef924fAdC7bb34253c7cF90/dxkKXGReQTPO60gCZumzd2oMSMeGs65GPU0dx6AY3rc) [https://mirror.xyz/0xE90c74145245B498fef924fAdC7bb34253c7cF90/dxkKXGReQTPO60gCZumzd2oMSMeGs65GPU0dx6AY3rc](https://mirror.xyz/0xE90c74145245B498fef924fAdC7bb34253c7cF90/dxkKXGReQTPO60gCZumzd2oMSMeGs65GPU0dx6AY3rc) Announcing the Vertical Acquisition of Votemak ============================================== [来](https://mirror.xyz/0xE90c74145245B498fef924fAdC7bb34253c7cF90/dxkKXGReQTPO60gCZumzd2oMSMeGs65GPU0dx6AY3rc)源 [https://www.tokemak.xyz/](https://www.tokemak.xyz/) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/a3f82caf6402640375d10ef9066919a4d24b8a725641b6f50798ba6ed4cf2694.png) In an effort to place ourselves at the forefront of the imminent TOKE wars, we have conducted a strategic acquisition of the bribe facilitators for Tokemak reactors, Votemak. This acquisition will be overseen by elected community members of the cartel, LiquidityWizard of Tokemak, and the core-team of Votemak, 0xTomoyo, DCF Intern, 0xMattyb, and DCFGOD. Votemak lets protocols bribe $TOKE holders to vote for their reactors via smart contracts. Protocols put up bribes in any ERC20 and $TOKE holders can collect those bribes after voting. To learn more visit [https://twitter.com/VoteMak](https://twitter.com/VoteMak) Last CORE event, Votemak generated over $130,000 of profits from over $2M in bribes and we expect the bribe amounts to be higher in future rounds (just as convex bribing played out). Votemak is currently the leader in the space and the clear decider of 3 of the 5 reactors from the last vote. The cartel is currently a leader in the curve wars and with Votemak it has the opportunity to be a first mover and the leader of the $TOKE wars as well. Further, if the cartel ever acquires $TOKE it can be users of its own product and pay no fees for bribes. Going forward the cartel will own this extremely profitable business, collect all of its revenues, and be positioned to organize bribes for liquidity direction and anything else $TOKE holders could be bribed for The Votemak team will work closely with the cartel to ensure the next CORE round goes smoothly, and from there the cartel will take over full control of the product. In exchange we will be issuing $1m of wxBTRFLY at a 7d TWAP at time of this post, vested over 1 year. We believe this pricing is strongly in favor for the cartel as it is possibly less than 1x profits for 2022, provides a huge head start on the toke wars, and sets up revenues not just from being bribed but also being the organizer of bribes. --- *Originally published on [andywan](https://paragraph.com/@andywan/the-curve-war)*