Inverse Finance (INV): What It Is, Uses and Risks

Inverse Finance is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that builds and manages several DeFi products on Ethereum. Its main pieces are FiRM, a fixed rate lending market, and DOLA, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. DOLA is backed by over-collateralized assets such as stETH and WBTC rather than by an algorithm. A yield-bearing version of DOLA, called sDOLA, passes on revenue from FiRM borrowers to people who stake their DOLA. The project was founded by Nour Haridy in late 2020, and its code base is open source and maintained by the community.

INV is the governance token of this DAO. Holders use it to take part in on-chain governance decisions. The project says INV also generates revenue sharing for stakers, but the public public information do not give the exact mechanics, so readers should check the project's own documentation before relying on that detail.

INV is used mainly for governance. Holders can vote on proposals that shape how the protocol and its treasury operate. The project description also links INV to revenue sharing for stakers, which means the token has an economic role beyond voting.

INV is not the token used to borrow or to hold stable value. Borrowers on FiRM use DOLA, and DOLA holders can move into sDOLA to earn yield. Revenue for the protocol comes from DOLA lending on FiRM and on third party lending protocols, along with treasury operations that deploy assets to DEX liquidity pools.

Readers should not assume that owning INV gives the same exposure as owning DOLA or sDOLA. The two tokens have different jobs and different risks.

Figures below are approximate and as of 2026-11-05. At that date the price was about $10.48, the market capitalization was about $7.5 million and the fully diluted valuation was about $7.6 million. Trading volume over 24 hours was about $18,901. The price was down about 3.1% over seven days and about 66.8% over one year. Circulating supply was about 714,903 INV, against a total supply of 727,000. The data gives no maximum supply.

INV reached an all-time high of about $2,075.09 on 2021-03-06. Its all-time low in the data is about $8.28, recorded on 2026-08-15. Market figures like these change constantly and can differ between sources. They are a snapshot, not a basis for any decision to buy or sell.

INV is issued on Ethereum, and public sources provided do not list it as the native token of any other chain. The project's own information says INV can be purchased on Curve and Balancer, both decentralized exchanges. Public reporting also point to wallets and guides for buying INV, but these are third party pages and their accuracy varies.

Before trading any token on a decentralized exchange, it is worth checking the contract address against the project's official sources, since fake tokens with similar names are common. Liquidity on small tokens can be thin, so a large order may move the price a lot. Fees and network costs on Ethereum also affect the final amount received.

The token is listed in categories including yield farming, yield aggregators and fixed interest, which reflects how the protocol is used rather than a separate network.

INV carries several risks. The price has fallen sharply from its all-time high, and the token has a small market value compared with many other DeFi tokens. Governance tokens can also depend on a small group of active holders, which can concentrate influence over decisions.

Smart contract risk is a central concern for any DeFi project. A search result reports that Inverse Finance suffered an exploit in April 2022 in which an attacker took about $15.6 million. Past incidents do not predict future ones, but they show that code bugs and attacks are real possibilities for protocols of this kind.

For storage, many people hold INV in a self-custody wallet, where they control the private keys. Losing the seed phrase or signing a malicious approval can lead to permanent loss. Anyone holding the token should keep recovery details offline, verify each transaction before signing, and avoid sharing keys with anyone.