Aave Should Block Curve Token Borrowing, Risk Management Firm Proposes

Security firms are floating proposals to prevent future loans against $158 million worth of curve (CRV) tokens on Aave, a lending and borrowing platform, amid an ongoing situation that has put the entire DeFi ecosystem under stress since Sunday.

Gauntlet, which specializes in risk management, posted the proposal on Wednesday to the Aave community members, who have until August 5 to vote on the proposal.

“Gauntlet has been looking into the risk profile of 0x7a16ff8270133f063aab6c9977183d9e72835428. This account borrows roughly $54m of USDT against $158m of CRV, as of 2023/08/01,” the proposal read. “We recommend setting CRV LTV to 0 to help impede additional borrowing against existing CRV collateral due to the recent decrease in CRV liquidity.”

The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is a measure comparing the amount of any collateral asset to the loan’s size. The higher the down payment; the lower the LTV ratio – and a zero LTV effectively means loans cannot be taken.

Curve Finance, a stablecoin swapping giant, suffered a Sunday exploit that drove down the price of the CRV token, putting a $168 million stash of founder Michael Egorov's money at risk of being liquidated.

This created bearish sentiment for the tokens among traders alongside concerns that liquidated assets would have to be sold into a market where prices are already falling. The liquidation of such a large position could have put pressure on other DeFi protocols because CRV is used as a trading pair and ballast in trading pools across the ecosystem.

However, wealthy DeFi players such as Justin Sun have stepped up to purchase discounted crv from Egarov in an effort to shore up liquidity, as reported.