Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance, is making progress in paying off his $80 million debt with a new round of over-the-counter (OTC) sales of the Curve (CRV) token. According to EmberCN, Wintermute Trading recently purchased 25 million CRV tokens for $10 million across two transactions, at a rate of 40 cents each. This is lower than the current market rate of 58 cents, as reported by CoinDesk market data. Other large buyers of CRV tokens in OTC deals include Gnosis Chain and Reserve Protocol.
Data from blockchain analytics firm DeBank shows that the cash from these sales has helped Egorov pay down some of his borrows from Aave, Abracadabra, FraxLend, and Inverse Finance. However, there is still a fear of contagion if the price of CRV hits $0.368. Gauntlet, a DeFi risk management firm, has warned that Aave would have to sell his CRV collateral into a market with low liquidity, which could be risky.
Nick Ruck, COO of Defi Protocol ContentFi Labs, commented to journalists that “while some have claimed that the Curve OTC deals decentralize the token, most of the traders are whales or institutional firms. It’s not necessarily a bad thing for DeFi but it enables risky behavior or protocol founders to expect the industry to save themselves from contagion stemming from an irresponsible loan.”
The price of CRV has remained steady around 58 cents in the past 24 hours, after dropping more than 20% since its exploit several days ago, per CoinDesk Indices.