Followers of the often opaque and volatile decentralized-finance corner of the digital-asset world are breathing a sigh of relief after a closely watched loan of nearly $70 million was partially repaid.
(Bloomberg) — Followers of the often opaque and volatile decentralized-finance corner of the digital-asset world are breathing a sigh of relief after a closely watched loan of nearly $70 million was partially repaid.
A digital wallet linked to Michael Egorov, founder of the DeFi protocol Curve Finance, returned $1.35 million of the USDT stablecoin on the decentralized lending protocol Aave. Egorov didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The repayment is being viewed by market observers as helping to mitigate the risk that the loan could be liquidated and add to the growing pressure on digital assets. The loan has been backed in part by the native token of Curve, which is known as CRV and has declined roughly 20% in the past week. Curve is the second-largest DeFi exchange, based on so-called total value locked, after Uniswap.
Curve is an automated market maker that is best known for stablecoin trading. The 3pool on Curve, a so-called liquidity pool that allows traders to swap between the three biggest stablecoins, is also in the spotlight. Starting late Wednesday, the percentage of Tether’s USDT token in the pool climbed to more than 70%, raising concern that traders were cautious about holding Tether and shifting into the two other stablecoins. Tether credited the shift to markets being “edgy’ these days and noted that the company was ready to meet all redemptions for the largest stablecoin by market value.
Stablecoins are key parts of the crypto sector where investors often park funds to use in trading. They are meant to hold a steady value, typically $1, and are often backed by reserves like cash and bonds. Regulators have stepped up scrutiny of stablecoins over concerns about the risks they can pose. Tether dropped below $1 on Thursday.
Thin liquidity in tokens such as CRV raises the risk of volatile price moves, according to Clara Medalie, director of research at crypto data provider Kaiko. In this case, if the position were to be liquidated, Aave would likely have to take a loss, she said.
At its core, the crypto market is dealing with lower liquidity as exchanges come under greater pressure from regulators and investors lose enthusiasm for the sector. At the same time, volatility has increased on most tokens outside of market leaders Bitcoin and Ether. Just the past weekend, there was a sharp selloff in crypto led by a slump in smaller tokens.
Prior to the partial repayment, about $185 million of CRV tokens, and $4 million of the stablecoin TrueUSD were secured for the loan, worth around $67 million in USDT and $700,000 in Circle’s USDC stablecoin, according to crypto risk modeling firm Gauntlet.
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