CRV Emission Rate Gets a Cut - As Programmed
Another August, another CRV Emission Rate cut: ~137.4M → ~115.5M CRV/year (≈15.9%) as Epoch 5 starts. Permissionless, hardcoded, and just in time for Curve’s 5th anniversary.
It’s that time of year again: CRV emissions are getting cut.
The rate of new CRV will decrease from ~137.4M CRV/year (~4.36 CRV/second) to ~115.5M CRV/year (~3.66 CRV/second), marking the start of Epoch 5.
The CRV emission rate decreases every August under Curve’s hardcoded emission schedule. The previous reduction kicked in on Mon, Aug 12, 2024 at 22:17 UTC.
CRV launched on August 12, 2020, so Curve’s 5-year anniversary is right around the corner - and it arrives with this year’s emission reduction.
The Emission Schedule
CRV emissions follow a fixed, immutable schedule based on epochs, each lasting exactly one year. At the start of every new epoch, the emission rate decreases by a constant factor of:
2^(1/4) ≈ 1.189
This results in a ~15.9% reduction in emissions every August.
As of today, all vesting CRV, including team allocations, investor distributions, and early user incentives, has been fully distributed. From here on, the only CRV entering circulation is through gauge-weighted emissions, where pools with more votes receive a larger share of the remaining supply.
Why CRV Gets More Scarce Over Time
Emission reduction is a key part of CRV’s long-term design: reduce inflation over time by tapering the supply of new tokens. This August’s cut continues that schedule, further lowering annual issuance and reinforcing CRV’s scarcity.
Historical Emissions Schedule
| DATE | EPOCH | CRV EMISSIONS per YEAR |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 2020 - Aug 2021 | 0 | 274,815,283,00 |
| Aug 2021 - Aug 2022 | 1 | 231,091,186,332 |
| Aug 2022 - Aug 2023 | 2 | 194,323,750,18 |
| Aug 2023 - Aug 2024 | 3 | 163,406,144,93 |
| Aug 2024 - Aug 2025 | 4 | 137,407,641.50 |
| Aug 2025 - Aug 2026 | 5 | 115,545,593.17 |
How Does the Emission Reduction Happen?
As with all mechanisms on Curve, the emission reduction is fully permissionless. It is not controlled by a multisig or any external administrator.
When the CRV token contract was deployed on August 12, 2020, the entire emission schedule was set in stone. The first epoch began on that same day, and the code has enforced a gradual, permissionless reduction in emissions every year since, with no way to modify or reverse it.
In practice, the reduction occurs when someone calls the update_mining_parameters() function on the CRV token contract after the one-year mark of the current epoch. Anyone can trigger this update, and once called, the emission rate is reduced for the next 12 months.
update_mining_parameters() function must be called manually after the one-year mark — usually around August 12, but the update might happen a day later depending on when someone calls it.The new emission rate always applies from the moment the function is called and lasts for the next 12 months.
With another cut locked in, CRV gets scarcer — and that makes future veCRV revenues all the more valuable.