Michael Egorov Requests 21M CRV Grant To Fund Curve’s Development Team

Michael Egorov, the founder of Curve Finance, requested a 21 million CRV loan from Curve’s community fund to support the project’s development team for one team.

On Aug. 19, Egorov published a proposal to Curve’s governance forum requesting 21 million CRV (nearly $6.35 million) to fund one year of operations for Swiss Stake AG, the company behind Curve’s development.

The proposal noted that Swiss Stake was previously funded by a CRV allocation it received in August 2020. Egorov said that any unused funds would be rolled over to fund Swiss Stake during the following year. Roughly 25 people currently work for Swiss Stake contributing to Curve’s maintenance and development.

“This proposal requests a grant for software research and development work as well as related tasks for the benefit of Curve as outlined within this proposal,” the proposal said. “The company does not have other substantial revenue sources and hence is dependent on the community to vote and ensure that Swiss Stake can continue contributions to Curve for years to come… We are aware that this proposal is a cultural shift and are seeking broad support to underpin its legitimacy,”

Swiss Stake said the grant would fund Curve’s maintenance, third-party audits and security research, the development of software development kits and other smart contract tools, the creation of educational resources, and organizing events relating to Curve.

The grant would come out of the Curve Community Fund, which currently holds 47.5 million CRV tokens. Swiss Stake would also retain the right to stake any CRV tokens allocated by the grant before they are spent, including via third-party token wrappers.

The company will provide bi-annual reporting on its spending and expenses.

Community pushback

The proposal largely garnered negative reactions from Curve’s community on the forum, with respondents highlighting that the requested sum comprises 44% of the Curve Community Fund. “What happens in two years if they need more funding?” asked Eazy, a forum goer.

Egorov replied that making Swiss Stake’s operations sustainable is the company’s first priority, noting that fees generated by the protocol and its crvUSD stablecoin could be diverted to support the company.

Other critics pushed back against the lack of a clear roadmap breaking down how the grant would be mobilized in detail.

“As written, this proposal hands over 21mil CRV (vested over one year) to an ambiguous individual or group of people, with no control on how it is spent,” said Intrepid_llama. Hsieh noted that the grant would equate to monthly salaries of $300,000 if evenly divided among 25 employees.

Egorov replied that he was advised by lawyers not to include a detailed breakdown of future funding plans in the proposal, adding that the costs of security audits and other third-party services will likely make up half of the budget.

Liquidation controversy

The grant request comes just a couple of months after Egorov suffered an enormous CRV liquidation after taking out roughly $95 million worth of stablecoin loans backed by 371 million CRV — valued at $141 million when the positions were entered.

The incident drew criticism from onlookers, who described the loans and liquidation as a way for Egorov to cash out without selling his tokens on the open market. On-chain data indicated that Egorov transferred $31 million in borrowed USDT to the Bitfinex centralized exchange in April 2023.

One month later, the Australian Financial Review reported that Egorov’s wife had purchased a $41 million mansion in Melbourne, with the property situated next door to a home they had purchased for $18.25 million one year prior.

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