Curve Launches ‘Lite’ Protocol Targeting Ethereum’s Layer 2 Ecosystem

Curve, a decentralized exchange focused on low-slippage trading, wants to expand its infrastructure onto new Ethereum Layer 2s.

On Nov. 27, Curve launched Curve-Lite, a scaled-back and open-source version of its DEX architecture. Curve said the protocol aims to service Ethereum’s rapidly expanding rollup ecosystem.

The new protocol includes Curve’s core decentralized exchange smart contracts and front-end interface integration. Curve-Lite remains controlled by the CurveDAO, allowing the decentralized autonomous organization to maintain control over smart contract assets, direct admin fees to a DAO-controlled vault, and facilitate the distribution of CRV emissions according to DAO governance.

“Every rollup requires DEX functionality from launch to offer users the ability to exchange their assets on their network,” Curve said. “To meet this growing demand, CurveDAO contributors have released Curve-Lite, which automatically deploys all Curve's essential DEX infrastructure… As a lite deployment, it contains the minimal but complete set of smart contracts needed to power DEX functionality on any EVM network.”

Curve-Lite currently supports rollups built on top of Arbitrum Nitro, Polygon CDK, OP Stack, and Taiko Stack, with plans to support additional tech stacks in the future.

While the protocol was initially launched on the Arbitrum Sepolia testnet, just one day later, Taiko, a rapidly growing Layer 2, launched a deployment of Curve-Lite on its mainnet.

Taiko noted that the deployment combines Curve’s optimized liquidity pools with the low gas fees associated with transacting on Layer 2.

The price of CRV is up 3.6% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

Taiko’s transaction count surges.

Taiko has recently emerged as the second-largest Layer 2 network by transaction count, despite ranking 13th by network total value locked with $341.7 million, according to L2beat.

Data from GrowThePie shows Taiko hosting 3.38 million daily transactions, according to a seven-day moving average. The figure beats out the likes of Arbitrum One with 2.13 million and OP Mainnet with nearly 796,000, only lagging behind Base with 10.45 billion.

Taiko also ranks third by active users with 180,000 behind Arbitrum with 466,370 and Base with 844,350.