Yearn Finance Newsletter #7
Week Ending October 18th, 2020
Welcome to the 7th edition of Yearn Finance Newsletter. Our aim with this newsletter is to keep the Yearn and the wider crypto community informed of latest news, including product launches, governance changes, and ecosystem updates. If you’re interested in learning more about Yearn Finance, follow our official Twitter and Medium accounts.
Summary
What is Yearn Finance?
yInsure Submission Period Concluded
Bug Bounty Program Published
Impermanent Loss Insurance
Open Call to Developers
Gitcoin Grants Round 7 Completed
Yearn State of the Vaults
Governance Updates (YIPs)
Ecosystem News
What is Yearn Finance?
Yearn Finance is a suite of products in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) that at its core provides lending aggregation, yield-farming, and insurance on the Ethereum blockchain. It is not a company, there is no CEO, no Board of Directors, no single developer or individual in charge of operations. There is no separation between the team and the community. They are synonymous, and instead there are contributors.
Andre Cronje is one such contributor, among many others. Yearn Finance is not Andre Cronje, and Andre Cronje is not Yearn Finance. On occasion, he develops new products for the ecosystem and this week he took the time to clarify his involvement in the DeFi space as a whole. You can read his post here.
The ecosystem is governed by YFI token holders, not by one single individual or small group of individuals. Anyone can join the ecosystem as a contributor, and we always welcome such additions.
Therefore, the ethos of Yearn Finance is a collective, collaborative ecosystem where contributors can build and develop with each other and with other projects in the DeFi ecosystem. The nature of Yearn’s products requires composability and usage of several protocols. This translates towards the collaborative development culture, which nurtures new products and manages existing ones.
yInsure Submission Period Concluded
We previously announced a competition to select artwork that would be the new face of yInsure. You can read the rules of the competition here and also view the post on the governance forum here. The competition concluded on October 17th and we are currently in the process of evaluating submissions and selecting the winner. We will announce the winner soon!
Bug Bounty Published
We have formalized and published the official Yearn Finance Bug Bounty program with rewards up to 50,000 yUSD. This program aims to encourage individuals to inspect our smart contracts, identify any potential vulnerabilities, and report them to us for remediation. Valid bugs submitted are eligible for bug bounties. You can find more details about the Bug Bounty program here.
Impermanent Loss Insurance
Several Yearn contributors are in the process of exploring insurance for Impermanent Loss (IL) related to providing liquidity on Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) that use Automated Market Maker (AMM) technology. If you are unfamiliar with IL you can read a description of it here and here.
Exploration in this area is a result of a desire by end-users to add yVault strategies that engage in AMM strategies, which are ultimately exposed to IL. We encourage you to join the discussion here or formulate insurance strategies that can be utilized in Yearn products.
Open Call to Developers
This weekend on the Yearn governance forums, Yearn developer x48 posted a short guide informing individuals on how to start contributing to the Yearn protocol. If you’d like to help out, start there, or head over to the #dev channel on Yearn’s discord server.
Gitcoin Grants Round 7 Concluded
We are proud to be an official sponsor for Gitcoin Grants Round 7. This funding round completed with $450k in matching grants—Gitcoin’s largest round ever. Gitcoin Grants Round 8 commences on December 2nd, and we encourage other projects and individuals to donate funds for various projects or initiatives in the wider Ethereum ecosystem. See Gitcoin’s tweet here.
Yearn State of the Vaults
You can read our weekly synopsis regarding Yearn’s yVaults, including current strategies and upcoming changes here.
Governance Updates (YIPs)
Read about completed governance votes and current proposals here.
Ecosystem News
y3Crv vault is live and available for deposits
Yearn Bug Bounty program announcement
Andre Cronje discusses his involvement in DeFi
Yearn v2 yVaults, enabling multiple strategies within one vault, are undergoing testing
How to get involved at Yearn: Open call to developers
400 yUSD bounty related to wallet connectivity issues
Yearn Communications member Facu Ameal speaks about Yearn Composability at DeFi Global Summit
Twitter thread about DAOs and token-based governance
US CFTC Chairman discusses Ethereum
Resources
YCosystem: Aggregator of Yearn community links
Y.finance: Development Yearn frontend
yGov Finance: Yearn on-chain voting
yGov Rocks: Alternative voting and claiming portal
Learn Yearn: Yearn education and explainers
Yield Farming Info: Yearn Vault APYs
Feel the Yearn: Yearn Vault APYs, wallet holdings, and earnings
Stats.Finance: Yearn Vault APYs, value locked in yVaults and Strategies
yVault ROI: yVaults ROI for any wallet address
Yearn ROI: Estimate future yVault ROI
DeFi Marketcap: Yearn Vault and token marketcaps
Recycler: Zap multiple stablecoins into yUSD Vault
yVault explainer graphics by DeFinn
We invite developers to conceive and propose any new yVault strategies or potential product offerings to the governance forum (https://gov.yearn.finance). Introduce strategies and get paid for your work! We are also always looking for security auditors to help us identify vulnerabilities and exploits. Please reach out to us if you are interested in assisting our security efforts or would like to discuss any business collaborations at franklinyfi@yearn.finance or info@yearn.finance