Yearn Finance formalizes operations budget as YFI rallies

Price and social media sentiment swoon in unison as Yearn Finance formalizes operations budget.

After a three-day voting period, this morning members of Yearn Finance’s decentralized governance approved Yearn Improvement Proposal 54 (YIP-54), formalizing an ongoing budget for operational expenses. 

YIP-54 aims to improve on previous proposals, including YIP-36 and YIP-41, which allowed for expenditures relating to hackathons, grants, security audits, bug bounties, and operations employee salaries. Under YIP-54, community members will be able to audit expenses quarterly.  

YIP-54 also included a provision allowing the newly-formed Operations Fund to “buy back YFI or other assets at its discretion.” Many Twitter users rejoiced at the news, interpreting it as a boon for the YFI token:

.@iearnfinance proposal to buyback $YFI has 99% approval!In the past 4 months, Yearn vaults earned ~$3.4M in fees. Part of this may now be used to conduct actual buybacks (not just burning supply) to reward contributors https://t.co/DbyLTRJADC

— Jason Choi (@mrjasonchoi) November 15, 2020

Other recent proposals have also been focused on bolstering the Yearn ecosystem and incentivizing broader participation from community members. 

YIP-53 established the “yAcademy,” a security audit-focused program designed with the purpose of “attracting and retaining top talent,” and possibly establishing and profit-generating auditing service in the future.

YIP-52, meanwhile, significantly increased rewards for strategists — the smart contract engineers who develop yield-bearing strategies for Yearn vaults.

The latest proposal’s success comes amid a strong run for Yearn’s YFI token — even by its own wildly volatile standards.

Since an early November low of $7,700, the YFI has rallied to a high of nearly $19,000, climbing over 200% as one of the top performers across the decentralized finance space. It currently trades at $18,266.

Likewise, the total value locked in Yearn’s yield-bearing vaults has begun to creep back up from an October low of $330 million to over $360 million today.

According to sentiment data provided by TheTie, social media sentiment for the asset has also been ticking upwards in recent weeks, even as total Tweet volume fluctuates, indicating that investors are increasingly bullish on YFI regardless of temporary hype.

However, these metrics likely don’t interest the YFI team. When reached for comment, the Yearn team declined. Said one senior developer in October:

Sirs, pls no charts in my feed.Blips are temporary, code is eternal.Keep on building.

— banteg (@bantg) October 7, 2020