Call for Proposals: Curve Risk Assessment and Market Monitoring

Grants
1

With LlamaRisk leaving Curve, the DAO needs replacement coverage for risk assessment and ongoing market monitoring across Curve primitives.

The priority is to secure reliable risk coverage for Curve’s core markets and ensure that useful tooling, models, documentation, and monitoring assets remain available to the DAO after the mandate ends. Candidate teams should propose which responsibilities they can take on, what KPIs they would commit to, and what budget would be required.

Mandate Objectives

The mandate should help the Curve DAO make better risk-adjusted decisions across crvUSD peg-stability mechanisms and mint markets, as well as Llamalend isolated markets.

The selected team should aim to:

  • Minimize preventable losses, bad debt, and market impairment.
  • Help the DAO understand whether Curve is being properly compensated for the risks it takes.
  • Monitor active markets for deteriorating conditions and escalate material risks early.
  • Support sustainable DAO revenue by assessing markets through a risk lens.
  • Improve transparency through regular public reporting and reusable risk infrastructure.

The selected team should begin by reviewing existing LlamaRisk handoff materials, reports, simulations, models, dashboards, and repositories, and assess what is reusable, what should be deprecated, and what should be rebuilt.

The selected team is responsible for the quality of its risk analysis, models, alerts, and recommendations; the DAO and eDAO remain responsible for final decisions and execution.

The core question is: Is the Curve DAO taking the right risk-adjusted approach, and are those risks being monitored properly?

Scope

The scope is split into two main areas. Teams may propose to cover one or both.

1. crvUSD / Mint Markets Risk

This covers crvUSD mint markets and related Curve infrastructure, including PegKeepers and DAO credit lines where relevant.

Expected responsibilities may include:

  • Assessing new crvUSD mint markets and PegKeeper pools before DAO approval.
  • Recommending risk-driven parameters for the deployment of new markets
  • Reviewing collateral quality, liquidity, oracle dependencies, market depth, and failure modes.
  • Monitoring active mint markets and PegKeepers for market health, liquidity conditions, oracle behavior, bad debt risk, collateral deterioration, and abnormal activity.
  • Recommending risk-driven parameter changes where needed.
  • Recommending the addition, adjustment, or removal of crvUSD mint markets and PegKeeper pools where risk conditions justify it.
  • Supporting Llamalend v1 deprecation and Llamalend v2 rollout from a risk-monitoring perspective.
  • Supporting governance posts and executable payloads where appropriate.
  • Detecting and escalating critical market stress conditions with timely recommendations to the DAO and eDAO.
  • Publishing biannual public updates on crvUSD market health, risks, recommendations, and unresolved issues.

2. Llamalend / Isolated Markets Risk

This covers Llamalend markets and related LLAMMA infrastructure.

Expected responsibilities may include:

  • Producing collateral-risk and market-risk reports for new Llamalend markets before DAO vote.
  • Recommending risk-driven parameters for the deployment of new markets
  • Reviewing collateral quality, oracle dependencies, liquidity depth, liquidation assumptions and market-specific failure modes.
  • Monitoring active lending markets for utilization, liquidity health, oracle behavior, bad debt risk, solvency and abnormal activity.
  • Recommending risk-driven parameter changes where needed.
  • Supporting Llamalend v1 deprecation and Llamalend v2 rollout from a risk-monitoring perspective.
  • Supporting governance posts and executable payloads where appropriate.
  • Detecting and escalating critical market stress conditions with timely recommendations.
  • Publishing public updates on lending market health, risks, recommendations, and unresolved issues.

Operating Expectations

Teams should explain how they would:

  • Monitor active markets on an ongoing basis.
  • Review new market proposals before DAO votes.
  • Identify and escalate material risks.
  • Define alert thresholds and incident-response procedures.
  • Coordinate with relevant Curve contributors, including Swiss Stake and the backend team where monitoring infrastructure is involved.
  • Document models, alerts, assumptions, limitations, and runbooks so they can be reused by Curve contributors.

The DAO receives a perpetual license and operational access to the models and code; the team retains the right to commercialise the tooling to other DAOs, TradFi, and DeFi actors.

Optional Scope

Teams may also propose additional responsibilities, including:

  • Reviewing gauge proposals.
  • Identifying stale, inefficient, extractive, or low-quality gauges.
  • Analysing whether CRV emissions remain justified by revenue, liquidity, strategic value, or market share.
  • Analysing and recommending pool parameter improvements.
  • Supporting BD with asset pre-screening, new market opportunities, and liquidity synergies.
  • Helping define public dashboards, monitoring tools, frontend risk indicators, yield sources breakdowns, and user-facing risk disclosures.

These areas are valuable, but secondary to the immediate need for risk assessment and market monitoring.

KPI Framework

Teams should propose their own KPIs. Suggested examples include:

  • Review coverage for in-scope proposals before DAO vote.
  • Monitoring coverage for active in-scope markets.
  • Response time for critical market-risk alerts.
  • Quality and follow-through of risk escalations.
  • Frequency and completeness of public DAO reports.
  • Delivery of reusable models, dashboards, alerts, documentation, or runbooks.

KPIs should be measurable, realistic, and tied to the proposed scope.

Proposal Requirements

Interested teams should submit:

  • Scope they are willing to cover: crvUSD / mint markets, Llamalend / isolated markets, or both.
  • Optional responsibilities they can take on.
  • Proposed KPIs and reporting cadence.
  • Team background and relevant experience.
  • Tooling, models, monitoring approach, and expected dependencies.
  • Operated services during the mandate.
  • DAO-owned or DAO-accessible deliverables after the mandate.
  • Code/model ownership, access terms, documentation, and handoff plan.
  • Expected coordination needs with Curve contributors.
  • Budget request, payment structure, and proposed trial or review period.

Teams may propose either a full-service model, a tooling-and-handoff model, or a hybrid model where monitoring is shared with existing Curve contributors.

There is no fixed budget at this stage. Teams should propose the responsibilities they can realistically take on, along with the budget required to execute them properly.

If teams have questions or topics they’d prefer to discuss privately before submitting proposals, they can reach out to Swiss Stake via Discord or Telegram. All other discussion is expected to happen in this thread.

Teams are encouraged to submit proposals within two weeks of this post. Later proposals may be considered at the DAO’s discretion, but timely submissions will be prioritized.

After discussing the CFP with several contributors, I’d like to clarify one point that wasn’t explicit enough.
The DAO is looking for lean, focused proposals. The priority is robust risk assessment and market monitoring, not recreating the previous mandate in its entirety.
Teams are encouraged to propose the smallest scope that delivers meaningful value, with optional responsibilities clearly separated. Reusing existing work and leaving behind reusable tooling, models, documentation, or other DAO-owned assets is strongly encouraged.
The DAO has intentionally not set a fixed budget. Teams should propose the scope they can realistically deliver, along with the corresponding budget.

Thanks to everyone who submitted a proposal.

The proposals vary significantly in scope, operating model, readiness, team size, ownership terms, and cost. It would therefore make sense to put them on a more comparable basis before moving to DAO votes.

Swiss Stake will coordinate a structured review of the proposals, with the goal to assess technical and operational fit. We will then publish our findings. The final appointment and funding decision remains with the DAO.

Next steps

Swiss Stake will prepare a concise standardized comparison of the proposals, focusing on key differences in scope, capabilities, readiness, team capacity, ownership, and cost.
We will post a common set of clarification questions, alongside any proposal-specific questions, where we will appreciate if each proposer can reply in a timely manner.
After reviewing the responses, Swiss Stake will publish a comparison and operational assessment, including strengths, concerns, and trade-offs, and potentially a shortlist. Depending on how the review went, we might also recommend a specific package.
We would then move to the process of selecting a finalist. The exact process for this is tbd, currently a Snapshot-based solution seems to be sufficient.
After a finalist is picked by the DAO, we will move to an onchain vote to confirm.

Expectations for proposers

We will share a standardized set of clarification questions shortly.

We are open to teams exploring collaboration where it makes sense, particularly if capabilities are complementary. Any such collaboration should aim for clear accountability, a well-defined division of responsibilities, minimal overlap, and a coherent budget and operating structure. If this is explored by any of the teams, Swiss Stake can help with introductions.

We appreciate the time and effort that has gone into these submissions and look forward to reviewing the next round of clarifications together with the DAO.

10 Likes
Xerberus Proposal for Scope 2: Llamalend / Isolated Markets Risk (plus a systemic-risk layer for the whole Curve perimeter)
CrossWorlds: Proposal for Curve Risk Assessment & Market Monitoring
BA Labs - Service Provider Proposal for Risk Assessment and Market Monitoring
[Temp Check] Use Treasury Funds to Repay Bad Debt
Xerberus Proposal for Scope 2: Llamalend / Isolated Markets Risk (plus a systemic-risk layer for the whole Curve perimeter)
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We’ve submitted a proposal in response to this RFP. To keep discussion focused, we’ve posted the proposal as a separate forum thread from @saintrat’s personal account. We’d greatly appreciate any feedback, questions, or comments there, so discussion can stay specific to the proposal itself.

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I have just submitted a proposal on behalf of the Pharos’ team. Following @Curvature example, I’ve created a separate thread you can consult here:

2 Likes
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Hello Curve! We are Xerberus, and we just submitted a proposal for Scope 2: Llamalend / Isolated Markets Risk, plus a systemic-risk layer across the whole Curve perimeter.

We know we are new faces here, so we already worked a few things out for you. You can find them in our proposal. We pointed our production risk engine at Curve’s markets and attached what came out: every Llamalend and crvUSD market reconstructed from raw Ethereum events, real measured worst days instead of assumptions, and a few findings we believe are genuinely useful to the DAO right now, whether you pick us or not. One example: a $1B credit line that currently sits outside every monitoring surface.

Working with us, Curve gets continuous monitoring with automated alerts, scenario simulations across the 21 protocols your collateral actually lives in, pre-vote risk reports, and a monthly public townhall where you tell us what to watch next. Your feedback shapes what we build, and honestly, that is half of what we are here for.

Our ask is intentionally small: $100k per year, paid entirely in CRV, 100% locked as veCRV. No stablecoins, zero sell pressure. We are funded, so this is not about revenue. We want a design partner, and the chance to earn this community’s trust in public. If after a year we have not been useful, simply do not renew, and everything we built for Curve stays with the DAO.

1 Like
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Hello Curve DAO, BA Labs (who owns the Block Analitica brand) is interested in providing our services for Risk Assessment and Market Monitoring of crvUSD Mint and Llamalend Markets, as well as assessing new, and managing existing, DAO-owned credit lines.

We have submitted our proposal here, and look forward to your feedback and review.

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Hello Curve DAO, we are Tulipa Capital. We want to provide the same risk management practices that we use to maintain our funds to the Curve Ecosystem. We are applying for the full scope of the requested proposal.

We have submitted our proposal here.

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On behalf of the Manifold Risk Team, I’ve submitted our Proposal to the DAO here.
We encourage an open source, knowledge sharing approach towards all things Risk in DeFi, and believe the long lasting way to go is to trend towards a Risk Community. Nonetheless, we propose for a 6 month trial.

1 Like
8

Hello everyone, please find here the proposal submitted by CrossWorlds, the Defi Risk arm of the Stake DAO Association. We built this proposal with the objective to be competitive, but fair enough to guarantee the strong dedication of the team for Curve.
We look forward to hearing your feedback.

1 Like
9

Submitted a proposal on behalf of yRisk covering both RFP scopes.

It’s designed to be a cost-effective, automation-first offering built around public tooling, continuous monitoring, and decision support. We’d appreciate any feedback or questions.

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Hello everyone, we also submitted a proposal. Available for any feedback.

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The scope split here — Scope 1 for crvUSD/mint, Scope 2 for LlamaLend and isolated markets — and the steer toward lean, smallest-scope proposals both make sense. The DAO shouldn’t be recreating the previous mandate. In that same spirit, I want to raise one narrow definitional question, because the submitted bids currently answer it inconsistently, and it seems better to settle it on purpose before the award than by omission after it.

The question: does the awarded risk mandate include measuring, tracking, and recommending a resolution path for the bad debt that already exists in the deprecated markets (CRV-long, WFRAX, and the like) — or is that explicitly out of scope?

Reading across the submitted proposals, the treatment genuinely diverges. Some name existing bad-debt remediation among their first deliverables — a per-market register, a “socialization vs. treasury” policy on the legacy hole. Others frame these markets as wind-down / deprecate and take no position on the outstanding losses. Both are defensible readings of a monitoring mandate, which is exactly the problem: if the award language doesn’t name existing debt, it lands between forward-looking monitoring and a wind-down, and ends up owned by no one.

There’s already a live example of that gap. CRV-long has had effectively no working exit for months — maxWithdraw sits at roughly zero (about 0.16 crvUSD) — against an independently reconstructed solvency shortfall on the order of $826K (a figure that moves with the CRV price). WFRAX bad debt has been dormant since the March thread with no owner. These are precisely the items that fall through the crack between “monitor forward” and “wind it down.”

To be clear, this is a governance-hygiene ask, not scope-creep. I’m not asking to expand the mandate or revive the old one — only that this single question be answered explicitly: is legacy-bad-debt measurement in the awarded scope, or out? And it’s worth noting that several of the leanest, cheapest bids already fold this in at no extra cost, so keeping legacy debt owned is a definition choice rather than a budget line.

Either answer works. “Yes, it’s in scope” hands the successor a clear standing item. “No — resolution of existing losses is a separate DAO decision, outside the risk mandate” is equally clean: it names the vacuum and forces the DAO to route it somewhere deliberately. The one outcome that serves nobody is leaving it ambiguous and discovering, after the award, that no one holds it.

2 Likes
12

Thanks to everyone who submitted a proposal.

The proposals vary significantly in scope, operating model, readiness, team size, ownership terms, and cost. It would therefore make sense to put them on a more comparable basis before moving to DAO votes.

Swiss Stake will coordinate a structured review of the proposals, with the goal to assess technical and operational fit. We will then publish our findings. The final appointment and funding decision remains with the DAO.

Next steps

Swiss Stake will prepare a concise standardized comparison of the proposals, focusing on key differences in scope, capabilities, readiness, team capacity, ownership, and cost.
We will post a common set of clarification questions, alongside any proposal-specific questions, where we will appreciate if each proposer can reply in a timely manner.
After reviewing the responses, Swiss Stake will publish a comparison and operational assessment, including strengths, concerns, and trade-offs, and potentially a shortlist. Depending on how the review went, we might also recommend a specific package.
We would then move to the process of selecting a finalist. The exact process for this is tbd, currently a Snapshot-based solution seems to be sufficient.
After a finalist is picked by the DAO, we will move to an onchain vote to confirm.

Expectations for proposers

We will share a standardized set of clarification questions shortly.

We are open to teams exploring collaboration where it makes sense, particularly if capabilities are complementary. Any such collaboration should aim for clear accountability, a well-defined division of responsibilities, minimal overlap, and a coherent budget and operating structure. If this is explored by any of the teams, Swiss Stake can help with introductions.

We appreciate the time and effort that has gone into these submissions and look forward to reviewing the next round of clarifications together with the DAO.

8 Likes
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Thanks for the much welcomed clarification on the process, looking forward to the next steps.

And just FYI, Pharos is bidding on scope 1 only and happy to collaborate with any pure scope 2 bidders, as well as on the scope 1 itself if the DAO picks several providers in that lane.

2 Likes
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Swiss Stake has reviewed the nine original submissions. Following the initial review, we sent each team proposal-specific questions covering areas that required further clarification, including methodology, readiness, staffing, market-launch capacity, incident coverage, scope, and pricing. Their responses and any supporting materials provided directly to us have also informed this assessment.

These follow-up exchanges took place directly with the teams, and proposers are welcome to publish their full responses, supporting materials, or any further addendum in their respective proposal threads before the preference votes begin.

We considered technical capability, operational readiness, relevant delivery history, Curve familiarity, team capacity, continuity, and commercial value. The notes below summarize the main strengths, concerns, and operational tradeoffs that stood out to Swiss Stake, and should be read alongside the original proposals and any subsequent public addenda. Costs are also shown on an annualized basis for comparison and reflect the latest standalone offers provided to Swiss Stake. Scopes, initial commitment periods, and payment structures differ, and are noted where relevant.

This assessment is intended to inform the DAO’s preference votes, while the final appointment and funding decision remains with the DAO.

Our qualitative assessment is as follows:

  • yRisk brings deep practical knowledge of Curve and Llamalend through its work on Yearn, Resupply, and related open-source tooling. Its automation-first model and open deliverables are also attractive. The main concern is capacity. Two contributors with other responsibilities would need to cover both scopes, support a fast pace of new Llamalend markets, and monitor a growing risk surface. It is not yet clear whether they can sustain that workload and provide sufficient incident coverage as the number of markets expands. Cost: $250,000 annually for both scopes.
  • BA Labs has a strong risk-provider track record and submitted one of the most complete operational proposals, covering both scopes, monitoring, governance execution, and handoff. They commit to delivering their simulation tooling within ten days and completing a market recommendation within four days once the methodology has been reviewed. The Curve-specific simulation methodology would still need validation before live use, but the tooling would be open sourced and available for review. The main remaining operational question is whether this turnaround can be maintained across a steady flow of new markets. Cost: $200,000 annually without dashboard or backend maintenance, or $250,000 with maintenance of existing infrastructure.
  • Blockworks Advisory offers a credible team, strong organizational support, and relevant work with Ethena and Spark. They provide clear review-capacity commitments, with standard assessments within five business days and one or two major reviews per week. Their broader monitoring infrastructure and a Curve proof of concept already exist, while the Curve-specific onchain integration, LLAMMA models, and human alert-escalation process would be completed during a 30-day onboarding period. Their direct Curve and LLAMMA delivery history is less established than some alternatives, but the proposal otherwise appears operationally credible. Cost: $240,000 annually for both scopes.
  • Curvature knows Curve well and proposes to have all three team members working full-time on the mandate. Its core parameter methodologies would be available from day one. Broader monitoring and monetary-policy work would still need to be developed during the first 60 days, while its 24-hour critical-response commitment is slower than several alternatives. Cost: $400,000 annualized for both scopes, proposed as $200,000 for an initial six-month mandate.
  • Xerberus offers a focused Scope 2 proposal built around an existing data and monitoring engine, with a useful three-month checkpoint and strong handoff terms. The main concern is the reliability of the analysis. The supporting reviews contained some material inaccuracies and did not give us enough confidence in its quality-control process. Governance payload creation is also outside the scope, meaning Xerberus would need to work alongside a Scope 1 provider and existing Curve contributors. Cost: $100,000 annually for Scope 2, paid in CRV and max-locked as veCRV.
  • Pharos Watch already provides public crvUSD monitoring and has clear expertise in stablecoin, peg, liquidity, and dependency risk. Its Scope 1 boundary is well defined, while the proposed three-month trial and handoff terms limit the initial commitment. The LLAMMA simulation and calibration layer would still need to be completed and proven during the trial. TokenBrice would initially own the quantitative work and final recommendations, with the third quantitative analyst recruited after approval, creating some key-person risk until the team expands. Cost: $350,000 annually for Scope 1, with an $87,500 three-month trial.
  • Tulipa proposes a strong operating model, including block-level monitoring, round-the-clock coverage, rapid human validation, substantial staffing, and strong handoff terms. Its relevant track record, however, is mainly in managing proprietary and third-party capital rather than providing protocol-level Llamalend parameter and simulation work, while some important quantitative capacity still depends on planned hires. Scenario analysis and recurring parameter optimization would also only become operational later in the mandate. Cost: $630,000 annually for the discounted core offer, while Tulipa recommends a $750,000 package including risk tooling and investigations.
  • CrossWorlds brings deep practical Curve and Stake DAO experience, production monitoring and liquidation infrastructure, and appears particularly strong in fundamental asset assessment. This is valuable for Scope 1, where asset failure can create direct risk to crvUSD. For isolated Llamalend markets, however, we place greater weight on parameter simulation. These capabilities are less mature in the current proposal, and CrossWorlds acknowledged that its simulation capability is not yet complete and may require support from Swiss Stake or another provider. Cost: $480,000 annually for the two core scopes. The team is now working on a joint package, which may change both the division of responsibilities and pricing.
  • Manifold brings meaningful Curve familiarity and focuses on valuable areas, particularly oracle safety and manipulation resistance. Its LLAMMA parameter, peg-capacity, and broader market-risk methodologies are still being developed, while the team has a more limited track record of directly comparable risk-provider work than several alternatives. They propose reducing existing compensation from other Swiss Stake and DAO engagements if appointed, which limits the funding overlap. The team is now working on a joint package with CrossWorlds, which may materially change the scope and delivery model. Cost: $300,000 annualized, proposed as $150,000 for a six-month trial.

Overall assessment

Many of the proposals are promising, and the variation in scope, operating model, and cost gives the DAO several different options. Swiss Stake remains flexible, but we want to ensure that the selected provider or package can support a fast pace of new market launches, monitor an expanding number of markets, and respond when risks emerge, without requiring extensive ongoing input from Curve contributors.

The largest uncertainty is the quality of the risk work each team would deliver in practice, which cannot be fully established in advance from proposals, methodologies, and supporting examples. Regardless of which option is preferred, we therefore recommend an initial limited mandate with a public review checkpoint before the DAO decides whether to continue or expand the engagement.

Next steps

Separate non-binding DAO preference votes for each eligible proposal or package are expected later this week. All votes will open and close at the same time, and voters may support more than one option. The option receiving the greatest total voting weight in favor will be treated as the DAO’s preferred option.

Before the votes begin, proposers are welcome to publish their full follow-up responses, supporting materials, or any further addendum in their respective proposal threads. Teams working on joint packages should publish them as soon as possible. Once confirmed, a joint package will replace the corresponding standalone proposals for the preference votes.

These votes will identify the DAO’s preferred provider or package, but will not authorize funding. Afterwards, Swiss Stake or other DAO contributors can work with the preferred provider to finalize the exact scope and terms where needed. The resulting mandate and funding request can then be submitted to the DAO for final approval.

3 Likes
15

We have issued a revised proposal, available here: CrossWorlds: Proposal for Curve Risk Assessment & Market Monitoring - #3 by Hubert
The idea behind it: we try to be as conscious as possible of the need to reduce DAO costs, while offering a very specific service of collateral asset risk assessment, lacking in several other proposals. It does not cover the full scope and is meant to be selected as a complement to the proposal selected by the DAO for the larger scope.
We believe it is a competitive bid as the pricing we suggest, if applied to the last year of operation of Llamarisk, would represent an annual cost of $30k. It can therefore be easily added to another proposal to benefit for a second pair of eyes and a different approach to risk assessment.

1 Like
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Tulipa Capital has provided a follow up containing our answers to the questions asked by Swiss Stake. Check out the response here

17

Thanks to @michwill for the review of BA Labs’ proposal, and to SwissStake for the feedback on it.

Since our methodology would be reviewed ahead of any engagement, we felt we should show how we intend to approach Mint and Llamalend market risk as it pertains to selecting optimal market parameters (A/loan_discount/liquidation_discount/fee).

Constraints

Every position’s max borrow is bounded by the market’s loan discount, band count (N), and amplification factor (A). We measure it because it defines the max LTV a market can safely offer for a borrower, and whether if this quote stays competitive with other venues for the same asset pair.

Second, the health buffer. We size liquidation discounts so a new borrower is never liquidated the moment they open a position, while keeping liquidators incentivized. Conservative buffers for blue-chip collateral, wider ones for exotic asset pairings. Similar to current convention, however we may increase this buffer for exotic asset pairings which tend to have less reliable liquidity guarantees.

Simulation Engine

Every candidate parameter set gets stressed against adverse price paths modeled on real market data, including the sudden jumps which trigger mass liquidations in DeFi today. Volatility is calibrated from empirical tails of price distributions, or from a volatility forecasting model.

We model slippage dynamically per pair. Thin pairs get priced as thin, single-pool liquidity venues. Liquid pairs are modeled such that liquidity is routed the way real aggregators route: deepest venues first, then degradation of liquidity causes sharp increases in the penalty. Strained liquidity raises the cost of liquidating, exactly where bad debt forms.

We also test the market’s own liquidity states: fresh deployments, one-sided band liquidity, and adverse configurations, allowing for us to examine arbitrageur incentives in varying market states. Because arbitrage incentives inside the AMM decide whether soft liquidations actually work when a market needs them to.

Final Selection

The parameter set that minimizes average tail losses (bad debt + arbitrage profits) across every scenario wins.

If selected, we are confident in our simulation tooling being shipped within 10 days, and first new-market reports within 14, because we already have a deep understanding of this market design.

We have already shared an in-depth version of our methodology to some delegates. We welcome any additional feedback on this approach from the greater DAO, contributors and delegates alike.

The voting phase has now begun, and if you believe we would be a good fit for this role, we implore you to vote for our proposal here: Curve.finance.