The Crypto Jack

CVX at $2: The Most Mispriced Yield Machine in Crypto?
This article is for you if...
You are a current CRV or CVX token holder.You are a prospective CRV or CVX token holder.You are not a holder or prospective holder but want to better understand why CVX is, in my opinion, one of the highest yielding, most consistent passive income plays in the entire crypto space today.
In this article I will discuss...
The mechanics behind yield generation on locked CVX tokens.Factors that affected historical yields on CVX tokens and how they have changed today.A projection of future yield one can expect to potentially earn on their locked CVX tokens by the end of this cycle.Why the bull thesis on CVX remains as strong as ever, considering all of the above.

Before we begin- a quick reminder that this is not financial advice, that these are my opinions and ideas only, and that you should do your own due diligence before deciding to buy CVX or ANY crypto token. In addition- I have not been paid to make this content, I am simply a passionate investor and long time holder of CVX.

Now with that out of the way, let's jump right in...
It's been over 4 years...
It's been over 4 years since I bought my first CVX tokens soon after the launch of
@ConvexFinance
in 2021.

The token was trading at around $5, I was a newly inducted llama (iykyk), and I was thrilled with the idea of being able to earn passive yield on an asset that I was sure was supremely undervalued relative to the rest of the crypto space.

So, I bought my initial tranche of CVX tokens, put them to work, and within two weeks I was collecting my first batch of that sweet, sweet yield.

*The CVX token would go on to 12x in the coming months and hit $60 at it's peak in 2022 and then correct with the rest of the market during the great 3AC/LUNA/FTX collapse era, but that is a story for another day.

Today, our focus is on, what is imo, the most consistent and least risky yield in all of defi.
So, how is this yield generated exactly?

1. Over the last few years, Convex Finance accumulated over 53% of all the voting power over Curve Finance governance (measured in % of total "ve-CRV" or "locked CRV" controlled)
2. Voting power in Curve is used to determine where all future CRV token emissions go
3. CVX token holders that choose to lock their tokens in 4 month increments get governance power over Convex
4. Therefore, CVX token lockers (that control Convex) effectively get to decide where ~50% of all future CRV emissions go, assuming Convex retains control of ~50% of all locked CRV (veCRV) tokens as new CRV supply enters the market over time
Snapshot from the Convex Finance website on January 23rd, 2026, listing off the amount of governance control they have over CRV, FRAX, FXN and RSUP protocols.
In essence, this means is that those CVX token holders who choose to lock their CVX tokens into the protocol for 4 months at a time, are rewarded with the power to direct millions of dollars of CRV token emissions to various liquidity pools of protocols in the Curve ecosystem.
This table shows the dollar amount of emissions controlled by locked CVX token (vlCVX) holders over a 2 week (14 days) period.
As can be seen from the table above, as of January 23rd 2026, vlCVX (locked CVX token) holders get control of nearly $900,000 of CRV emissions, every two weeks (at current CRV prices and emission rates). Since these CRV emissions can only be directed to protocol pools within the Curve ecosystem, vlCVX holders accept "incentives" (aka tokens) from various protocols in the Curve eco, to direct their votes to those protocols' pools, turning their voting power into cold, hard cash (well, digital cash) that they can collect after every 2 week "round" of CRV emissions.

*Yes, there are a few other protocols that Convex has control over, including FXN, FRAX and RSUP, but as can be seen from the table above, CRV emissions make up over 95% of the value that CVX lockers control and emissions from the other protocols are significantly smaller at this time- so we will focus exclusively on CRV emissions moving forward.
Now that we understand where the yield comes from, lets talk about the 3 main factors that affect how much yield is generated for CVX token lockers...
So if it wasn't already clear from the info above, the amount of yield generated for individual CVX lockers (expressed as APR) is directly related to:

Factor 1: the $ amount of CRV emissions that Convex controls
Factor 2: the total amount of CVX locked in Convex finance (vlCVX) that participates in each voting round and splits the offered incentives (referred to as "bribes" by some))
Factor 3: the $ amount of incentives paid to CVX lockers for every $1 of emissions that the CVX lockers direct to incentivized pools
We now understand where the yield comes from and what factors affect how much yield one can get, so now lets take a look at historical yields during the last major run in 2021/2022...
It's worth mentioning, that the entire reason I decided to check these calculations to begin with, was because I remember how quickly my 2 week cash flow payments ballooned up back in 2021 as the prices of both CRV and CVX started to rise.

A month or two ago a fellow CVX holder had made a comment along the lines of "I wonder what our bi-weekly payouts will be once CVX price rises" and I said something along the lines of "Don't quote me on it but I think they increased by 5-10x back in 2021 on the way to the all time highs of $60+". This led me to actually investigate the numbers that I am presenting to you here today:

After going back and checking, I found that I went from earning 6 cents per locked CVX token in the first round of payouts to a whopping 87 cents per locked CVX token just 4 months later, a massive 14x increase in yield that ultimately allowed me to recoup my entire principle investment in CVX just 6 months after I invested- and this is without selling a single token.

This is important because when you hear "30% APR" (what CVX lockers have earned on average over the last year) this doesn't reflect how much more you can earn in a bullish market environment like the one we had in late '21. As mentioned earlier, what should have taken me 3+ years to accomplish (recouping my original investment) via bi-weekly payments in 2021, only took me 6 months, or 1/6th of the time, primarily due to the rising price of CRV during this window of time (our "Factor 1" from above).
And here we are today, 4 years later, with a chance to do it all over again...
- CRV emissions continue, albeit at a ~50% lower rate
- Convex still controls > 50% of all veCRV (and thus > 50% of all CRV emissions)
- Over 45% of all circulating CVX tokens are locked today vs 35% during the expansion phase in '21
Except this time, CVX is trading at over 50% less than what I originally bought it for back in 2021...

So, is this a massive opportunity like it was in '21?

Can we expect to earn a similar amount of yield during the next expansion phase as we did during the run up in '21?

In a few moments, I will break this all down by taking a look at all the relevant numbers/data in an attempt to project our potential future yield so we can compare how much things have changed (or haven't) over the last four years.

Before I do this however, I want to address something that I know will inevitably come up in the comment section as it always does: That is, the question of CVX's viability moving forward considering it has corrected some 95+% from the highs.

There is a quote from Ted Warren's How To Make The Stock Market Make Money For You that I find is well suited for this exact scenario: "If a person knows a stock has been lying quietly and low for a long time it is natural for him to question the reason that it stays there so long, even though it may be paying a high rate of return. He is suspicious that there are some detrimental facts about which he is not aware, so he passes up a bargain."
While Ted Warren was referring to stocks in the above quote (it was written in the mid 1900's) the message is just as true about assets today as it was about assets back then. That is- when people see an asset like CVX back at sub $2 from a high of $60, they immediately think that this is a sign of weakness, or that something is "wrong" with the asset- even if it may be paying a "high yield" or have metrics that otherwise suggest it is simply unvervalued. Rather than doing a bit of due diligence to better understand the asset and potentially scoop it up at a massive "discount", many simply ignore the asset completely. What they fail to recognize is that every asset goes through periods of booms and busts, and this does not mean that an asset that is in the latter stage of it's market cycle is fundamentally flawed, or will never recover. In fact, assets that have seen significant draw down and have entered their high time frame accumulation/bottoming phases often yield the greatest returns with the least amount of relative risk if they ARE fundamentally sound within the sector in which they exist.

So, there are a number of things one should consider if doubt (due to a low token price) starts creeping into your mind:

1. Even Bitcoin, which is arguably the most stable and factually the longest existing crypto in the space has seen FOUR ~80+% drawdowns in it's lifetime, and it has recovered from each and every one. In crypto, significant drawdowns are the norm, and if the undisputed market leader can crash over 80% four times thus far, then it should not come as a surprise that more volatile beta assets like alt-coins (including CVX) will at some point in their lifetimes see drawdowns of 90+%- this is to be expected and is the norm for all alts, not just CVX. If the alt is fundamentally sound, and/or can provide token holders with real value and/or yield, this is simply a massive opportunity when it happens.
2. Unlike Bitcoin, CVX has only ever existed for just over 5 years, and has only ever gone through one major rise and one major drawdown- it is still very early in its life cycle. For reference, at this point in Bitcoin's life it had just corrected down to $200 from an ATH of $1200 (see image below)...and like CVX now, most at the time thought that there must be something "wrong" with it, simply because of the depth of this correction. Today, we know that this was obviously an incorrect conclusion made based on an incorrect assumption.
A snapshot of the Bitcoin chart 5 years into it's existence.
3. CRV emissions were modeled directly after Bitcoin's emissions (except with a 15% reduction in emissions annually instead of a 50% emission reduction every 4 years to smooth out the emissions curve), which means CRV emissions will continue for the next 100+ years, and Convex gets control of a majority of these future emissions, in perpetuity, thanks to their control of CRV governance power. As long as CRV emissions continue and CRV exists, owning and locking CVX tokens should continue to earn holders a consistent yield, every two weeks, without fail.
This is all to simply say that drawdowns of this magnitude in this space are normal, and that the same mechanics that brought value to CVX tokens in '21 exist today and will exist 10 years from now (assuming CRV is still kicking, which I expect it to). Assuming that we get a bullish altcoin market environment in the coming months/years, there is zero reason why CVX won't participate in it and/or benefit from it like it did in '21.
Now- back to the numbers...
Let's take a look at our data and see how our yields on locked CVX may look if we enter another period of upwards price expansion for CRV and CVX in the coming months.

To do this, we will once again examine each of the 3 factors mentioned earlier in this article that ultimately determine how high (or low) APR for CVX lockers will be. As a reminder, those factors are (copied from earlier in the article) below:

Factor 1: the $ amount of CRV emissions that Convex controls
Factor 2: the total amount of CVX locked in Convex finance (vlCVX) that participates in each voting round and splits the offered incentives
Factor 3: the $ amount of incentives paid to CVX lockers for every $1 of emissions that the CVX lockers direct to incentivized pools
Factor 1: the $ amount of CRV emissions that Convex controls
To calculate this metric we must examine three things- first, the annual emission rate of CRV tokens, second the % of total locked CRV (veCRV) that Convex controls (which in turn determines how much of total annual CRV emissions Convex controls), and third the price of the CRV token at the time when the emissions occur.

To start, let's take a look at the annual inflation schedule of CRV below:
Table of CRV annual emissions, taken from official public Curve Finance documentation.
As we can see from the table above, annual emissions in '21 first got reduced in August of '21 and then were reduced annually every August after that. Our rise on CVX from its inception to it's peak at over $60 took place from September of '21 until a few months later, falling squarely in the window highlighted on Row 4 of the table above.

CRV emission rate in '21 period of expansion: ~231M tokens annually or ~633,000 CRV tokens daily.
Now if we look at Row 8, we have the CRV emissions rate today: ~115.5M tokens annually or ~316,500 CRV tokens daily.

So we can see that one of the major differences in our "yield factors" from '21 vs today is that the total CRV tokens being emitted has basically halved.
Now, let's take a look at the % of total locked CRV (veCRV) that Convex controlled in '21 vs today:
Data from a Dune analytics dashboard contributor
@Marcov
that shows the total amount of veCRV controlled by Convex vs other protocols.
We can see from the screenshot above, that around September of '21 which is when our major rally had kicked off on Curve and CVX, Convex had controlled around 105M veCRV tokens while other protocols controlled around 205M veCRV tokens combined. This means, that even back in late 2021, just a few months after launching, Convex quickly amassed control of more than 50% of all veCRV in existence at that time.

Fast forward to today, and we can see from the table below that Convex grew that nominal amount by quite a bit over the years and they now control over 4x as much veCRV as they did in 2021, hitting ~420M as of Feb '26. While the nominal number of veCRV controlled by Convex has increased substantially since '21, when expressed as a % of total veCRV, this is still about 53% of all veCRV in existence today, which is very similar to what we had during the '21 expansion phase. This is relevant because it implies that just like in '21, Convex currently controls over 50% of all daily
$CRV
emissions at this time.

Data from
defiwars.xyz
on current veCRV supply as well as top holders.

Finally, let's consider the price of CRV today vs where it was at in '21.
As a reminder, we have to remember that although it seems a little counterintuitive- the price of CRV is a bigger factor than the price of CVX when it comes to determining the yield earned by CVX lockers. Again, this is because the yield for CVX lockers is determined by the value of CRV emissions, not CVX emissions.
We also have to keep in mind, that while daily CRV emissions remained the same during the 3-4 month period that we are observing in 2021, the price of CRV was constantly in flux, ranging from a low of $2.70 (in September of '21 when the first round of payouts began) to a high of $6.80 just 98 days later. During this same period of time, the price of CVX ranged from $10 to $61.

I've shared a chart below to better visualize where both CRV and CVX were trading when the first round of payments via Votium began in September of 2021.
CRV and CVX price charts with the green circle marking the first round of CVX incentive payouts in late '21.
Today, we trade significantly lower on both CRV and CVX, as can be seen from the chart above.

Due to the incredibly volatile nature of crypto, CRV price is probably the biggest variable when it comes to evaluating Factor 1. While the emissions schedule stays consistent for a year at a time, and the % of veCRV controlled by Convex has kept relatively stable at around ~50% over the years, CRV price has been in constant flux since inception.
Factor 2: the total amount of CVX locked in Convex finance (vlCVX) that participates in each voting round and splits the offered incentives
Some might make the assumption that all the bi-weekly incentives that are offered by protocols are split amongst ALL of the locked CVX tokens during each respective round.

However it is important to recognize that not ALL those who have locked CVX necessarily vote for those protocols pools that are contributing incentives.

For example, there are some protocols who have bought their own CVX, locked it, and then simply direct the voting power of the CVX that they have locked themselves to their own pool- removing the need to provide bi-weekly incentives to entice others to vote for their pools.
This means that the CRV emissions that are directed to various pools every two weeks will not be split by the full amount of locked CVX tokens at that time because some locked CVX tokens will be directing their share of emissions to their own owners' pools which will not qualify for a share of that round's incentives.

To better illustrate this, let's take an example:

Round 20 which ended on 6/13/2022 had a total of ~43M vlCVX votes that participated, as can be seen on the
llama.airforce
dashboard below. However, if we check to see how many CVX tokens were locked at this time, we can see that the total amount was around 51.5M CVX tokens.
42.88M tokens participated in this round of voting, despite total amount of locked CVX tokens at this time exceeding 50M.
This implies that around ~84% of vlCVX participated in this round and so all protocol incentives from this round will be divided amongst these ~43M vlCVX as opposed to the 51.5M locked CVX tokens that were controlled by Convex at this time.

*Taking data from every 10th round of voting since inception, we found that, on average, around 85% of vlCVX vote for pools that provide third party incentives every round.
Factor 3: the $ amount of incentives earned by CVX lockers for every $1 of emissions that they direct to incentivized pools
As mentioned earlier, for those CVX lockers who DO "sell" their votes to third party protocols that provide incentives, it is important to note that they sell these votes at a discount relative to the amount of emissions said votes control. For example, if one user controls 1000 locked CVX tokens this round which control $100 worth of CRV emissions, they may accept $70-$80 of "incentives" (tokens given by a protocol) in exchange for directing their emissions to a specific protocols' pool. This is because (as mentioned earlier) only specific pools within the Curve ecosystem can have emissions directed to them. Individuals cannot direct the emissions they control via their vlCVX to their own wallets, so they must sell them at a discount to protocols in the ecosystem that CAN receive them.

So we must remember, that:
The incentives offered to vlCVX holders by various protocols every two weeks will typically be LESS than the emissions that are being directed to these same protocols during that round.

We can call this metric "incentive efficiency" moving forward, which is basically a ratio that measures the $ amount of emissions received by protocols per $1 spent on bribes.

If the markets were perfectly efficient, this metric would lean very close to 1 (but slightly higher) to suggest that for every dollar spent on incentives, protocols receive slightly more than a dollar back in incentives. This creates a win-win scenario for the protocols that are paying incentives (they get > $1 of emissions per $1 spent on emissions) and those that are receiving the incentives (vlCVX holders can exchange their CRV emissions for other tokens that can be deposited directly into their own wallets).

When the markets are less efficient, this metric would push 10, 20, or 50% higher than 1 (1.1, 1.2, or 1.5).

On average, data suggests that the average exchange rate is around $1.2 of emissions per $1 dollar of incentives- that is a ratio of 1.2- but we have seen this ratio climb as high as 1.5 or even 2 at times.
Now let's put it all together...
Now that we understand how all the factors come into play when trying to determine yield for CVX lockers, let's keep all this information in mind while analyzing data from the latest round of voting and use that information to project potential future yield:

We can see the following data from the latest round of voting (Round 115):

This image shows the amount of total veCRV controlled by Convex at this time. This directly corresponds to the % of daily CRV emissions that Convex controls at this time.
Factor 1: We can see that Convex controls a little over 50% of total emissions, that this equates to 2.3M tokens per two-week period, and at a price of .24 per token comes out to around $550,000 of emissions controlled by Convex for this round.

Factor 2: We can see that there are a total of 47.5M tokens locked in Convex at this time, and we can see that around 40M voted in this round (33.5M from Votium, 6.5M from Votemarket) out of 47.5M locked- or approximately ~85% of all locked CVX tokens during this round.

Factor 3: For this round, our emissions per dollar spent on incentives was almost a perfect 1.0. This is the best case scenario for vlCVX holders as it means that they were able to get a near equal amount of incentives per dollar of emissions that they control. This equates to around .01253 cents per vlCVX on Votium as pictured above. (Note that there are additional tokens locked on Votemarket by StakeDAO that likely earned a similar yield, but this is not reflected in the Votium dashboard above, which is why we see "total" incentives at $420k instead of close to $550k- the difference is from vlCVX holders that decided to delegate to other third parties like Votemarket by StakeDao rather than Votium).

Now, let's extrapolate this information out into the future, assuming CRV and CVX enter an expansion phase, similar to the one that we had in 2021.

For this projection, we will make a few base assumptions:

1. CRV emissions remain the same as what they are today- as the next reduction will take place in August of 2026, not before.

2. The amount of locked CVX remains the same at around 45% of total supply (with around 85% of these lockers participating in voting for incentivized pool)- in reality, we would expect this number to decrease during bull markets as individuals may prefer to keep funds liquid for profit taking during the next expansion phase rather than have them locked to earn yield (which should be more popular in extended bear markets since holders would prefer to earn yield on dormant tokens while waiting for the next expansion phase). This means our projections will generally be a bit more conservative under this assumption.

3. Convex continues to control ~50+% of all veCRV, so that the % of total emissions they control through the expansion phase remains approximately the same as they are now.

Which means, the biggest variables that we will need to account for are CRV price and our "Factor 3" which is the incentive (bribe) efficiency ratio.

Below, we will now model 3 different scenarios at various price levels of CRV which we will call "Perfect Efficiency", "Average Efficiency", and "Inefficient".

We will use the data from Round 15 for the "Perfect Efficiency" scenario since the incentive efficiency ratio for this round was a near perfect 1.0. This is the most optimistic model because typically we do not get perfectly efficient rounds every time.

The "Average Efficiency" scenario will assume a incentive efficiency ratio of 1.2. This is a very realistic model because we have typically seen the efficiency ratio at this level, on average, over a large number of rounds.

The "Inefficient" scenario will assume a incentive efficiency ratio of 2.0. This is the "worst case scenario" as it is very rare that we see rounds ending at this level of inefficiency. As a reminder, an efficiency ratio of 2.0 means that those protocols that are incentivizing pools are getting emissions directed to their pools for 50 cents on the dollar. Great for the protocols that are doing the incentivizing but bad for vlCVX holders that are only getting paid incentives worth 50% of the emissions that they are directing.
Our three different efficiency scenarios modeled at varying prices of CRV.
As can be seen from the table above, the weekly cash flow per locked CVX token IS significantly lower than it was back in '21, and this is logical because we know that our inflation rate of the CRV token has halved since then, AND we have more locked CVX tokens participating now than we did in '21, (which was shortly after the protocol had launched).

This implies that yields will generally be lower than what they were in '21 as seen in the table above.

With that being said, however, there are some other aspects to consider as well that paint a more bullish picture for the CVX token price itself:

1. We now have much LOWER inflation of the actual CVX token than we did in '21, as CVX emissions were front-loaded early on, and have since tapered off significantly. Today, total CVX supply is almost 100% fully circulating (with the exception of 7M of the total 100M tokens which still sits in the Convex Finance treasury) and emissions are close to ZERO, which was certainly not the case in '21 when daily emissions of the
$CVX
token were dramatically higher (as can be seen from the chart below). In general, a lower inflation rate means there is less new supply being introduced to the market, and this then translates to less "fresh" sell pressure over time and as the token rises.
CVX inflation rate over time.
2. In 2021, as
$CVX
price approached it's peak, we had approximately 35% of all circulating CVX locked. Today, that number is closer to 50%. While more locked CVX tokens also generally means lower yield overall (incentives get split amongst a greater amount of CVX lockers), it also means a lower float of CVX tokens available on the open market, which typically translates to larger, more aggressive pumps in token price during expansion phases. This seems almost counterintuitive to some because total circulating supply is higher than it was in '21, but total circulating supply does not account for how much of this supply has been "cornered" by smart money that has effectively taken these tokens of the market- resulting in less "available" supply than meets the eye. (We saw this exact phenomenon demonstrated on another one of my spot picks, HBAR, which pumped 10x in 2024 in HALF the time it did in 2021, despite a circulating supply that was 4-5 times higher in 2024. You can view a short 2 minute clip about that
here.
)

So while overall yield on CVX will likely be lower than it was during the '21 expansion phase, there is also a strong argument to be made that a more constrained supply dynamic (due to a higher % of staked tokens and a lower float) will lead to an even more aggressive expansion phase on token price this time around- which should easily offset the overall decrease in yield from locking.

Finally, as mentioned at the start of this article, CVX currently trades at under $2, over 50% lower than what it was trading at in 2021 when I first got involved with the token. At the beginning of this article I had mentioned that it took me about 6 months of earning yield to recoup my initial investment on CVX via passive income during the '21 expansion phase. Because of the discounted pricing that CVX trades at today- and the expectation of a more aggressive expansion phase this time around- it is very possible that those who buy the token at current prices may be able to recoup their initial investment in a similarly short amount of time (once the expansion phase begins) despite the lower yields relative to price today.

At a cost basis of $1.80-$2, and referencing our yield table above (that I've copied below), assuming an "Average" efficiency model, a buyer of CVX today could recoup their entire investment via passive yield in:

~10 months once CRV is trading at $2
~3 months once CRV is trading just under it's prior ATH at $6 OR
~1-2 months if/when CRV exceeds it's prior highs and is trading at upper targets of $10-$20.
Again, this doesn't take into account any token appreciation either- and if CRV is trading at new all time highs, it is almost certain that CVX will follow, implying a 30-50x gain from current price levels, vs the 14x gain we saw in 2021 (assuming you entered like I did at around the $5 mark).

So while overall yield from locking CVX tokens is expected to be lower than it was in 2021, the discount to early 2021 valuations that CVX trades at today means investors at current levels may be able to recoup their initial investment just as quickly as I did in 2021 AND are likely to earn a higher multiple on CVX token appreciation than I was able to in 2021 (in the next bullish expansion phase).
In conclusion, CVX remains (in my opinion and based on all the data above) the most consistent, best R/R passive income opportunity in all of crypto at this time and the combo of the current "discounted"token price, consistent yield, and potential upside from CVX token appreciation in the next bullish expansion phase cements CVX as one of my highest conviction bets in the crypto space today.