Curve Finance loans climb 68% in Q3 as DeFi lending recovery lags

Curve Finance has recorded a 68% rise in active loans to $70.9 million in Q3 2026, moving above its 2025 closing balance while total DeFi lending has remained below that benchmark, according to figures cited by the protocol. Summary Active loans increased from $42.18 million on June 30 to $70.9 million on Sep. 30. LlamaLend v2 accounted for about 84% of Curve’s net lending-debt increase during the quarter. Sector-wide active loans ended September at $32.8 billion, roughly 13% below the 2025 closing total. A proposed reUSD/sfrxUSD liquidity pool token market awaits a Curve DAO vote. DefiLlama data cited in Curve Finance’s quarterly update put the protocol’s outstanding loans above the $69 million recorded at the end of 2025. Across DeFi lending, the same comparison showed $32.8 billion in active loans at September’s close against $37.5 billion at the end of last year. Within Curve’s lending business, the team attributed most of the quarterly increase to LlamaLend v2, which reached Optimism in June and Ethereum mainnet in July. According to its update, August delivered the strongest growth, led by markets involving yield-bearing stablecoins such as sreUSD, sfrxUSD, and syrupUSDC. Cur...