Yearn.finance (YFI) has taken the entire crypto industry by storm over recent weeks.
The cryptocurrency first caught much of this space’s attention when prominent crypto analyst and VC investor Andrew Kang noted that the coin, which is the governance token of the Ethereum-based Yearn.finance protocol, was up 100,000 percent from its launch price:
“YFI is now the second 1000x I’ve seen in the last few weeks. For those questioning the math, the balancer pool launched at $3 YFI, but CMC and Coingecko did not start tracking the price until sometime after.”
Despite this already impressive rally, the Ethereum altcoin has continued its ascent to the upside, with it two weeks ago becoming the first reputable cryptocurrency to trade above the value of one BTC. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Yearn.finance is literally up 1,000,000% since its July launch
According to CryptoSlate data, YFI is now the 25th largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $1,000,000,000 and a unit price of $33,400. The coin is up 37 percent in the past 24 hours and up a stunning 166.5 percent in the past seven days.
Considering that YFI began trading at approximately $3 on Balancer, this means that the coin is up literally over 1,000,000 percent since its launch approximately six weeks ago.
It is unclear if there are any cryptocurrencies that have rallied this fast, ever.
As one commentator said online, “YFI pulled a Bitcoin in five weeks,” referencing the original cryptocurrency’s multi-million-percent ascent to relevance.
This rally comes after a number of analysts pointed to how intrinsically undervalued YFI is as an investment. YFI was also listed by notable Ethereum protocol Aave, increasing its usability.
Second-order effects on Ethereum & DeFi
The surge in the price of YFI has seemingly been having second-order effects on the rest of the DeFi ecosystem.
As crypto fund/market commentator Humboldt Capital wrote after the majority of YFI’s move to the upside, “Newly minted YFI wealth is is being re-allocated down the DeFi risk curve.”
Newly minted $YFI wealth is being re-allocated down the DeFi risk curve.
— Humboldt Capital (@HumboldtCap) August 30, 2020
All major DeFi coins are up in the past 24 hours, but some have been outperforming others.
Nexus Mutual’s NXM coin has gained 30 percent in the past 24 hours and 47 percent in the past week according to CryptoSlate data. Nexus Mutual, a decentralized mutual for insurance on DeFi hacks, will be the underwriter in Yearn.finance’s upcoming insurance system.
Decentralized insurance, especially with players like Yearn.finance supporting it, is expected to be a multi-billion-dollar Ethereum industry in the coming years. As Fred Ehrsam of crypto investing giant Paradigm once said:
“Crypto-native insurance – on-chain insurance covering protocols and DAOs – has the potential to be the next big financial primitive in DeFi. The market size could be enormous and the initial wedge is credible.”
