Finance
Curve Finance Users are Locking Record Amounts of CRV Tokens in the DEX – The Defiant
Users locked 51 million CRV last week, surpassing the previous record of 24 million from October, 2022.
Curve Finance users are locking in more CRV tokens in the decentralized exchange than ever before.
Curve Finance drew in 51 million CRV tokens, or $14.7 million into the protocol, in the seven days ending July 8, according to crvhub.com, which tracks the data. The past week’s inflows bring the total deposited to 796 million CRV, or $230 million according to Dune.
The figure is significant because it more than doubles the previous all-time high of 24 million CRV locked in October 2022 of Also, the rate of lockup is 100 times more than the previous periods, meaning a potential renewed intensity in protocols bidding to exert more influence over Curve, said Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance.
Egorov said the data suggests investors are increasingly focused on the importance of governance and fee distribution. This could prove to be a “tectonic shift” in users’ overall attitude in an ecosystem overly focused on financial gains, Egorov said.
Aside from the upswing in locked tokens, Curve also had its best week in terms of fee revenue since April 2024. Last week the protocol’s fee revenue surged to $951,000, up from $548,000 the previous seven days.
Egorov explained that by locking CRV tokens to obtain veCRV, users get the ability to earn fees in the Curve system and gain voting rights for platform governance. However, users must commit to a lock period of up to four years to boost their voting power and earning potential to their maximum.
TVL Lags
Still, surging locked CRV tokens has not led to an increase in TVL.
According to DefiLlama, Curve’s TVL lands on $2 billion, up from $1.8 billion at the onset of 2024, but at more than half of last year’s $4.3 billion peak.
However, that still lands it in second place among all decentralized exchanges on DefiLlama, trailing only Uniswap. The fact that Curve has been seeing an overarching downtrend while maintaining second place for DEXs might be more of an indictment to the sector than the protocol itself. TVL for all DEXs is at $18 billion, up 80% from its 2023 $10 billion bottom.
The near-vertical ascent in CRV lockups has not spilled over into the financials of the protocol either.
Curve Finance’s market capitalization sits at $346 million, the lowest it’s been since December 2022, according to CoinGecko. The token recently touched its all-time low amid a widespread crypto sell off. CRV hit its record bottom on July 4 when it traded for $0.22 on July 4, but has since jumped 33% and now changes hands for $0.29. It is down 98% from its all-time high of $15 from Dec. 2020.
Nevertheless, according to the Curve Finance team, the spike in CRV locks might indicate a renewed intensity in the protocol competition that was nicknamed “Curve Wars” back in 2021, where various protocols tried to lock more CRV tokens to gain greater influence and rewards within the Curve Finance ecosystem.
Finance
Low-income Chinese girl aces gaokao, inspires live-streamers offering help
A girl from a disadvantaged rural family in central China topped this year’s gaokao, attracting numerous live-streamers eager to finance her education, which she declined.
The home of 18-year-old secondary school graduate Han Yaping in a Henan province village was recently bustling with live-streamers.
This attention came after Han achieved an impressive score of 699 out of 750 in the gaokao, China’s national college entrance exam.
She has received offers from China’s two leading universities, Tsinghua University and Peking University.
Han’s accomplishment is particularly remarkable given her family’s impoverished circumstances.
Her mother suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine, preventing her from working. Her father, who earns a living through farming and odd jobs, serves as the family’s sole provider. Han also has a younger sister.
Finance
UK financial regulator publishes landmark AI review
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a landmark review on Monday that proposes recommendations to regulate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the financial decisions made by consumers.
The review, titled the Mills Review, anticipates that both consumers and firms will start delegating “more financial decision-making to AI systems,” including for agreements, initiating transactions, and executing decisions “within agreed parameters.” One of the key findings of the review outlined that while AI can help bridge advice gaps and “support growth,” there remain risks “associated with fraud, cyber security, and consumer harm.” Conducting the review, Sheldon Mills highlighted that “AI can also amplify risks: bias, discrimination, exclusion, opaque decision-making (particularly when multiple AI models interact), misleading or hallucinatory advice and erosion of consumer trust.”
The review stated that presently, one in five adults in the UK are “already open to AI making decisions for them,” particularly when decisions feel “complex or high stakes.” It found that roughly 26 percent of the population “trust general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for financial advice” with little awareness that such platforms provide no “formal routes to recourse” or protections.
Overall, the Mills Review identified four areas that it anticipates will be impacted by AI in the financial sector: “the transformation of firms,” “new consumer journeys,” “a reshaped competition landscape,” and “amplified financial crime and cyber risk.” The FCA projected the shift in how consumers and firms consult AI to take place by 2030.
The Mills Review put forth seven “priority” recommendations to be considered by the FCA Board. It recommended that any transitions to autonomous AI models be monitored and that regulatory frameworks and perimeters be adapted and secured. The review called for the strengthening of “system-wide coordination and oversight,” the scaling up of the FCA’s AI Lab to enable it to support AI models and innovation for agentic finance, and an “AI-enabled agentic supervisory model” to be built and adopted. Finally, it recommended that a trusted “public-interest AI-enabled financial capability service” be developed.
The FCA announced, in the press release, that it will launch an AI “good and poor practice publication” in late 2026.
Finance
Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approves audit contract, new finance director position
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – The Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approved a one-year audit contract capped at $131,750 plus $225 per hour during a virtual meeting Monday, along with a new finance director job description.
The contract is with Mauldin & Jenkins Certified Public Accountants, an Atlanta-based firm, and covers the 2025-26 fiscal year and the restatement of the 2024-25 fiscal year and ancillary services through FY 2029-2030. The work is set to be completed by Nov. 15.
The board approved the contract in a 5-0 vote.
Audit contract details
Interim Chief Financial Officer Kyna Koch said the cost is already accounted for in the district’s budget.
“And is actually less than we expected given our current situation — we were thrilled with the bid,” Koch said.
Koch said she believes this is Mauldin & Jenkins’ first school district audit in Kentucky, but that the firm works with school districts of more than 100,000 students throughout the Southeast.
“Quite frankly when I spoke to the folks at KDE they were thrilled because we’re running kind of short of auditors who want to do school district audits — so all around I think this was a win-win for everyone,” Koch said.
New finance director position
The board also approved a new job description for the position of Director of Finance. Acting Superintendent Dr. Bill Bradford said the title will replace two associate director positions.
“Which will not only save the school district money but it’s also going to streamline our work and align internal controls to make room for a more efficient unit,” Bradford said.
Koch said the position will be posted as soon as possible following the board’s approval.
Closed session
The board went into closed session for more than an hour to discuss pending investigations that could lead to employee discipline. When the board returned, it took no action and adjourned the meeting.
Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.
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