Deposits in 'Monetary Experiment' Meme Token YAM Break $460M

YAM, DeFi’s latest farm-fresh product, has never been audited. Yet, that’s not holding back traders from pumping the token’s price to a high of $138 since it launched Tuesday.

AccessTimeIconAug 12, 2020 at 4:05 p.m. UTC
Updated Aug 19, 2021 at 3:38 a.m. UTC

Presented By Icon

Election 2024 coverage presented by

Stand with crypto

YAM, decentralized finance’s (DeFi) latest farm-fresh product, has never had a code audit. Yet, that’s not holding back traders from pumping the token’s price from zero to $138 in the 20 or so hours since it launched. The token now is trading hands at $126, according to YAMalytics.

YAM by Yam Finance is a mishmash of DeFi products packaged in one humble tuber, generally meant to track the U.S. dollar. Or, as the founding team put it, YAM is a “minimally viable monetary experiment.” 

  • Bitcoin Mining in the U.S. Will Become 'a Lot More Decentralized': Core Scientific CEO
    13:18
    Bitcoin Mining in the U.S. Will Become 'a Lot More Decentralized': Core Scientific CEO
  • Binance to Discontinue Its Nigerian Naira Services After Government Scrutiny
    05:10
    Binance to Discontinue Its Nigerian Naira Services After Government Scrutiny
  • The first video of the year 2024
    04:07
    The first video of the year 2024
  • The last regression video of the year 3.67.0
    40:07
    The last regression video of the year 3.67.0
  • Which can be translated to say the project has no real purpose – it’s just for fun.

    That hasn’t stopped DeFi traders from piling in. YAM’s market capitalization sits at $13.5 million with some $29,361,386 in 24-hour trade volume, according to CoinGecko

    DeFi summer

    The experiment joins a cornucopia of other DeFi summer “meme” coins such as Tendies and YFI.

    Its codebase pulls from multiple other DeFi projects including Compound’s on-chain governance, Curv’s governed treasury and Uniswap’s pools for token distribution (not to mention a few others). 

    Uniswap is where the magic is happening right now. Called yield farming, Uniswap gives token market liquidity providers a proportional amount of the platform’s native token, YAM, back for their trouble. Place a token pair like ETH/COMP in a pool and get YAMs in return, the logic runs.

    Farming has dragged these other tokens up alongside YAM. Six of the eight coins available for yield farming posted positive gains in 24 hours, with Compound’s COMP token up 49%, according to Messari (over a $300 million increase in market capitalization).

    GREEN REVOLUTION: As the YAM goes, so do other DeFi tokens.
    GREEN REVOLUTION: As the YAM goes, so do other DeFi tokens.

    Harvesting YAMs

    YAM most notably borrows from Ampleforth’s elastic supply schedule. Called a “rebase,” the project’s code will sprout new tokens at set intervals to push or pull YAM’s price back towards one dollar. Trader’s are rushing in to scoop up price gains before the rebase occurs.

    According to the blog, founders Brock Elmore, Trent Elmore, Clinton Bembry, Dan Elitzer and Will Price conducted no pre-mine, garnered no VC interest and took no founders’ share. The team could not be reached by press time.

    The reckless speed at which the project has grown is not lost on the team – particularly because YAM has never passed a food inspection, so to speak.

    The code base has never been audited, a fact the founders are quite upfront about.

    “Nothing approaching the rigor of a formal audit has been conducted at this time,” the Medium article reads. “This was a 10-day project from start to launch.”

    Disclosure

    Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information have been updated.

    CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of the Bullish group, which owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish group equity-based compensation. Bullish was incubated by technology investor Block.one.


    Learn more about Consensus 2024, CoinDesk's longest-running and most influential event that brings together all sides of crypto, blockchain and Web3. Head to consensus.coindesk.com to register and buy your pass now.



    Read more about