On a Quest to Win the Curve Wars

Curve Finance is a decentralized provider of liquidity for tokens and is a critical part of the decentralized finance (DeFi) and stablecoin markets. It’s one of DeFi's leading automated market makers.

According to the platform, “Hundreds of liquidity pools have been launched through Curve's factory and incentivized by Curve's DAO.” These incentives and the battle other DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) are waging to control their allocation are known loosely as the “Curve Wars” and have been underway for some time.

As DeFi projects compete to control veCRV’s power of capital allocation, a rich ecosystem of solution-providers has developed around the Curve protocol to help DAOs maximize their projects’ potential within the Curve gauge system.

One of the latest and most advanced products in the space is Quest by Paladin, a one-stop-shop Curve gauge solution for DAOs. Quest has several benefits and differs from other solutions in two distinct ways: First, it allows the development of long-term strategies instead of competing on a weekly basis. Instead of simply offering an arbitrary number of rewards to influence voters, Quest allows players to set parameters and rewards for each weekly vote period. This means that the Quest dapp aligns veCRV holders with the project by introducing capped access that rewards the most loyal voters – which in turn ensures sustainable access to the gauge emissions.

Second, Quest enables a data-driven approach toward spending, which is especially important during bear market conditions. The costs for DAOs are based on the “per veCRV calculation principle,” which implies focusing on veCRV acquisition cost rather than just the overall budget spent. Quest creators can also recover any rewards that were not claimed for maximum efficiency. For DAOs, such an approach brings back control of spending at a time when projects are shifting their focus to managing risks from generating growth at all costs.

Therefore, using the dapp to create Quests allows DAOs to develop and execute more complex strategies around the Curve gauge, while still being able to better control the required spending budgets to succeed within the Curve system.

It should be noted that although the Quest dapp was launched recently, several DAOs are already turning to this product and have benefited from the most flexible rates in the market. Among the first Quest creators are Threshold Network, Stake DAO and Alchemix Finance, which have all seen the benefits of using the dapp.

Quest is the latest product issued by Paladin DAO, representing a leading decentralized non-custodial governance lending protocol. Paladin allows its product users to either lend the voting power in their governance token or borrow some voting power. Further, depositors stake governance tokens or derivatives that grant voting power in exchange for yield, while borrowers can leverage their voting power to gain more temporary influence.

Paladin sits at the heart of the fast-growing market for voting rights and influence across the DeFi landscape. Its latest Quest product is a crucial weapon for DAOs to have in their armory as they continue to fight the Curve Wars in a way that is strategic, efficient and cost-effective. To learn more, visit Paladin.vote.