Curve DAO Greenlights Yield Basis Protocol as Phased Rollout Commences

DeFi's institutional gateway just got wider—Curve DAO tokenholders voted overwhelmingly to onboard Yield Basis Protocol, kicking off a multi-phase deployment that could reshape yield farming strategies.

Governance in Action

Community governance proved decisive here. The proposal cleared voting thresholds with unusual speed—signaling strong consensus around Yield Basis's novel approach to basis trading on-chain.

Phased Launch Strategy

Initial deployment focuses on core vault structures, with progressive feature unlocks scheduled throughout Q4. This cautious rollout mirrors Curve's trademark methodical approach—because in DeFi, moving fast sometimes means breaking more than just things.

Yield Arsenal Expands

The integration effectively weaponizes Curve's liquidity against traditional basis spreads. Traders gain institutional-grade tools while LP providers access sophisticated strategies—all without touching the compliance nightmares of TradFi.

Because nothing says decentralization like recreating hedge fund strategies with governance tokens—the financial revolution continues, one basis point at a time.

A phased rollout toward mainnet

Originally proposed by Curve founder Michael Egorov in August, the initiative has now passed a governance vote in the Curve DAO, marking the start of a phased launch.

The approved credit line will initially support three Bitcoin-focused liquidity pools: Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH (cbBTC), and tBTC. Each of these pools will have an initial cap of $10 million, providing a foundational infrastructure for a leveraged Bitcoin yield primitive.

Bitcoin’s yield dilemma on Ethereum

Bitcoin has long faced hurdles when it comes to earning returns in DeFi. Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) holders can use lending markets such as Aave, or provide liquidity on AMMs like Uniswap, which exposes them to impermanent loss risks. 

For years, earning meaningful returns on bitcoin in DeFi seemed nearly impossible, with most valuable opportunities capped at ~1–2% yield. Yield Basis aims to address this gap by allowing single-sided BTC deposits, designed to reduce impermanent loss while generating yield from trading activity.

By advancing Yield Basis, Curve enters an already competitive sector where protocols like BadgerDAO have experimented with Bitcoin yield products on Ethereum. At the same time, development of Bitcoin-native DeFi on LAYER 2s continues, creating two distinct approaches to making BTC productive.

The approval and stepwise execution of Yield Basis is a technical point for Curve, as the DAO aligns around a Bitcoin yield product tightly linked with crvUSD. It can expand Curve’s fee base but also test whether Ethereum-based solutions can compete with emerging Bitcoin-native DeFi platforms.

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