Adjust admin_fee on INV and DBR pools

Summary

  • Set admin_fee = 5% on the newly deployed TriDBR (DOLA/DBR/INV) and INV/WETH pools
  • These pools already use higher trading fees (mid_fee / out_fee) to reflect volatility and to compensate LPs.
  • We will not seek a Gauge Controller listing nor request CRV emissions for these pools while this parameter is in place.

Background

  • INV is Inverse Finance’s governance token. DBR is a perpetual call option token used to borrow DOLA on FiRM (Inverse’s fixed-rate lender).
  • INV and DBR are exotic assets. Sustainable liquidity requires meaningful trading fees to LPs. With Curve’s default admin_fee = 50%, half of fees are diverted to veCRV, leaving LPs with too little to stay without external incentives.
  • Historically, we bridged that gap with CRV incentives. When those incentives paused recently, third-party LPs exited, leaving only protocol-owned liquidity: clear evidence of incentive dependency.

Proposed Parameters

  • mid_fee (low-volatility minimum): 0.50%
  • out_fee (high-volatility maximum): 2.00%
  • admin_fee (share of fees to veCRV): 5%

This keeps 95% of trading fees with LPs while still sending a non-zero stream to veCRV

Motivation and Rationale

  • Make fees do the work: On Uniswap-style markets, LPs are retained by fees, not emissions. By combining higher trading fees with a low admin take, we aim to replicate that behavior natively on Curve for these exotic pairs.
  • Sustainable for veCRV: Although admin_fee drops from 50% to 5%, the total fee take per trade is materially higher (mid_fee/out_fee significantly increased), so veCRV admin revenue can remain in the same ballpark at typical trade sizes/volumes, while avoiding CRV inflation entirely.
  • No gauge, no emissions: We are not asking for a gauge. The pools should stand on their own economics. This aligns with veCRV holders who prefer real fee revenue over new token emissions.
  • Alignment: Inverse is a meaningful veCRV holder (via liquid lockers). We’re proposing a structure that pays LPs enough to stick around, and keeps a steady fee stream to veCRV, without tapping inflation.

This configuration is intentionally experimental and, to our knowledge, uncommon on Curve for long-tail assets. We may bring forward future adjustments to mid_fee, out_fee, or admin_fee via standard governance to optimize LP fee APY, depth, and admin-fee revenue.

Specification

NEW_ADMIN_FEE = 500000000
ACTIONS = [
# Set INV/WETH admin_fee to 5%
(“0xDcD90D866Ff9636e5a04768825d05d27b3Fb19eC”, “set_admin_fee”, NEW_ADMIN_FEE),
# Set TriDBR admin_fee to 5%
(“0x66da369fC5dBBa0774Da70546Bd20F2B242Cd34d”, “set_admin_fee”, NEW_ADMIN_FEE)
]

I’m against this change, and will be voting against this proposal. 5% is egregiously low, and sets a dangerous precedent.

Reducing the admin_fee to this level is short-sighted for the whole community, including Inverse. It reduces the value proposition for CRV, which in turn reduces the ability for Curve to fund development, bug bounties and attract LPs.

The DAO did vote to not take an admin fee for YB pools, however this is offset by over $100k in weekly YB distributed to the DAO which it can do with what its wishes.

So my question is, what is Inverse actually offering here? I personally hope this isn’t just a take the deal or we’ll leave thing. That never feels nice for either side.

Curve’s tech is great tech, and the only completely passive full-range liquidity option available other than UniV2 that I personally know of. Moving elsewhere will be accepting that protocol owned liquidity will be the only liquidity for Inverse pools moving forward, because managing CLAMM ranges requires professional expertise, and cannot be done easily by community members.

In saying this I really value Inverse as a member of the Curve community, currently there are Spectra pools with admin_fee set to 20%, I believe this should be the lower bound if we are to reduce admin fees at all. The development and infrastructure costs of Curve are not free and 5% is just too low.

The difference between 5% and 20% for the DAO is huge, the difference between 80% and 95% for LPs is minor.

For the reasons you stated (no gauge, no emissions, high fees) I would support this proposal if the admin_fee was was changed to 20%.

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Proposal live:

Curve DAO: https://www.curve.finance/dao/ethereum/proposals/1255-ownership
Curve Monitor: https://curvemonitor.com/dao/proposal/ownership/1255
Convex: https://vote.convexfinance.com/#/proposal/0x7b83ea2bff6830e59d619088aa20d99db1f6d8a1301d99a44885d33130d9bfea
Stake DAO: https://www.stakedao.org/governance/protocols?voteId=0x9fe06f28a1780444e260cf76a3bdf7ac9c22385b44bf736f0b66fb78bef9076e

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I agree admin fees are to high at 50%.

Curve should shift to a revenue generation for LP rather than CRV farming.

20% is OK

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