Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov has launched Yield Basis, a new automated market maker (AMM) designed to generate sustainable Bitcoin yield without exposing liquidity providers to impermanent loss. The protocol went live this week with three capped pools and vote-escrow governance, marking Egorov’s first major initiative since stabilizing Curve after last year’s liquidity shocks. CoinDesk first reported the launch.
Why Yield Basis Matters
- Impermanent-loss shield: Yield Basis retools the AMM formula so LPs are never penalized when asset prices diverge, addressing a pain point that kept institutional Bitcoin holders on the sidelines.
- Controlled rollout: Initial pools are capped at $1 million each to observe performance in production before opening the floodgates. Early liquidity incentives are paid in crvUSD or wrapped BTC rather than dilutive emissions.
- Governance alignment: A new veYB token model requires holders to lock tokens for voting rights and revenue share, mirroring Curve’s “value-protecting” approach to emissions.
Funding and Go-to-Market
Yield Basis secured $5 million in seed backing earlier this year and is debuting on the Legion and Kraken joint launchpad, giving accredited investors a path into the token sale. Egorov signaled that removing impermanent loss for BTC is just a first step, with plans to apply the same design to ETH, tokenized commodities, and eventually traditional equities as on-chain liquidity deepens.
What’s Next
Early deposit caps will stay in place while auditors and launch partners monitor pool performance. If spreads and hedging costs behave as modeled, Yield Basis could become a template for future on-chain yield products that institutional desks are willing to underwrite. For Curve, the launch doubles as a credibility rebuild—showing the protocol’s founder is still pushing technical boundaries rather than relying on inflationary token rewards.
Source: CoinDesk