YFI Yield Farming: What Ended and How Yearn Vaults Work Now

Status checked 13 August 2026: The 600%–896% yields and YFI distribution described below were a brief July 2020 launch event, not a current opportunity. The original liquidity-mining campaign ended after distributing the initial 30,000 YFI. Yearn remains an active protocol, but its current product is primarily V3 vault infrastructure: depositors receive ERC-4626-compatible vault shares while delegated managers allocate funds among strategies.

Yearn’s own V3 contract documentation warns that the vault provides no assurance about the safety of a chosen strategy. Returns are variable, can turn negative, and add smart-contract, strategy, liquidity, oracle and underlying-protocol risk. Use only the current Yearn interface reached from yearn.fi and evaluate each live vault separately.

Original 2020 YFI farming article (historical archive)

Yield Farming is a popular method for cryptocurrency owners to gain passive income. It involves taking advantage of various incentives rewards for locking-up (aka staking) different cryptocurrencies. This article focuses on yield farming for the $YFI token which has become the highest performing yield farming pool.

Check out our video on how to potentially earn 600% returns through YFI Yield Farming!

CRAZY Yield Farming (YFI) | 600% ANNUAL RETURNS??!!!

Watch on YouTube

The yEarn project has launched its own governance token – $YFI – this week, sending the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Yield Farming scene into a frenzy. As of this article, staking stable coins (USDT, USDC, DAI, or TUSD) into the Y pool will yield an astronomical 896% Annual Percentage Yield (APY). This is due to the incentive token $YFI being distributed to staked token holders, making this the single best yield farming pool right now. This has sparked a huge amount of interest in both searches for the $YFI governance token (trending right now on coingecko). Since the token launch, more than $60 Million of new capital has been deposited into the Y pool. Calculate yield using the community made yieldfarming tool.

WARNING: Yield farming involves a high amount of risk due to the experimental nature of the Ethereum network with potentially undiscovered critical vulnerabilities. Never stake/farm more than you can afford to lose. This is not Financial Advice.

What is the yEarn (iEarn) Pool

The iEarn “Y” pool is a yield aggregator – it automatically invests its capital into different DeFi projects – selecting those with the highest yield and return on investment. As a DeFi protocol, a smart contract keeps the invested funds – which makes the project non-custodial. The pool itself is comprised of 4 different stable coins – USDT, USDC, DAI and TUSD – with a total of over $103 Million USD in currency reserves (Assets Under Management – AUM). These reserves are then lent out to different protocols that offer the best rates of return, including Compound, Aave, and dYdX. yPools are considered riskier than other DeFi products such as Compound because lend capital out to a series of protocols – which themselves could be vulnerable to critical vulnerabilities.

How to Earn the YFI Token

There are two pools that reward the YFI token for staking. The first and easiest pool to access is the Y Pool on Curve.Fi. This pool is a collection of stable coins that are automatically invested in different lending protocols. This type of pool is usually considered a higher risk due to possible vulnerabilities not just with its own smart contract, but with other smart contracts too.

How to to earn YFI tokens

Unfortunately “Yield Farming” for the YFI token has ended. When YFI first launched, all 30,000 tokens were distributed to stakers on the https://ygov.finance/staking platform. Although initially there were plans to distribute more tokens, attempts to come out with a plan to do so have all been voted down in the Y governance. This means it’s unlikely that new $YFI tokens will be distributed in the future. Other tokens such as YFII and YFV still have token distribution for yield farmers.

What is YFI token

YFI is the governance token for yEarn (previously known as iEarn). Tokenholders are entitled to vote on upcoming governance decisions for the network – such as potentially stopping all-new distribution of the token. Creator of YFI, Andre Cronje (@AndreCronjeTech) has stated that the token has no intrinsic value.

“We have released YFI, a completely valueless 0 supply token. We re-iterate, it has 0 financial value”
Andre Cronje

This being said, the current wave hype wave and token dynamics have driven up the value of the token. The token follows the “Governance” model where it’s value comes from voting on where the protocol will go next. On top of this, the incentivized Balancer pool (YFI 2%, DAI 98%) requires the staking of $YFI, which locks up further supply. Simply put, DeFi farmers are locking up YFI and DAI in order to receive BPT tokens which could be staked on ygov.finance to gain an additional $YFI. This type of cyclic farming create pseudo ponzinomics and could lead to potentially disastrous results.

Balancer Warning & new coin minting risk

One of risks that was mitigated by the team was with token issuance. Currently there is a max cap of only 30,000 YFI tokens. Earlier this week it was discovered that there was a master key which permitted YFI developer Andre Cronje to mint new coins and potentially flood the market with new coins. If he did this, it would of been possible for him to take the entirety of Pool#2 and Pool#3 on Balancer, with a total of more than $150 Million USD. Luckily this did not happen, as he quickly created a multisignature address which requires 6/9 key holders to agree to minting new tokens. The purpose of this is to remove single party risk as 6 of the 9 keyholders are required to agree to create new coins. On top of this, even if they do agree, the community will have 3 days notice before anything happens.

Overall the long term objective of YFI is to leave control of the total supply of YFI and distribution up to the community to decide. The voting aspect of YFI will allow governance token stakers to decide who to do with the platform.

YFI distribution stop

Distribution of $YFI tokens will temporarily stop as new contracts are being prepared. Times for the pools stopping are as follows:

curve.fi/y: 07/24/2020 @ 11:50am (UTC)
http://balancer.exchange: 07/25/2020 @ 9:35am (UTC)
http://ygov.finance: 07/26/2020 @ 3:38pm (UTC)

Resources:

yEarn documentation – http://docs.yearn.finance
yGovernance and staking – https://ygov.finance
Pool Information / Calculator: https://yieldfarming.info/
Curve Guide on Pools – https://guides.curve.fi/how-to-choose-the-right-curve-pool-for-you/
Coindesk Report: https://www.coindesk.com/troll-token-why-defi-yield-farmers-are-now-all-about-yfi

Decentralised Finance (DeFi) series: tutorials, guides and more

With content for both beginners and more advanced users, check out our YouTube DeFi series containing tutorials on the ESSENTIAL TOOLS you need for trading in the DeFi space e.g. MetaMask and Uniswap. As well as a deep dive into popular DeFi topics such as decentralized exchanges, borrowing-lending platforms and NFT marketplaces

The DeFi series on this website also covers topics not explored on YouTube. For an introduction on what is DeFi, check out Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Overview: A guide to the HOTTEST trend in cryptocurrency

Tutorials and guides for the ESSENTIAL DEFI TOOLS:

YFI yield farming FAQ

Can users still farm the original YFI distribution?

No. The 2020 liquidity-mining campaign that distributed the initial 30,000 YFI ended. The archived pool instructions and quoted yields are not a current offer.

Is Yearn Finance still active?

Yes. Yearn continues to maintain vault infrastructure and governance resources, but its products and strategies have changed substantially since the original article.

What is a Yearn V3 vault?

A V3 vault accepts an underlying asset, issues proportional vault shares and can allocate funds among compatible strategies under assigned management roles.

Are Yearn vault returns guaranteed?

No. APY is variable and may be based on recent performance. Strategy losses, fees, contract bugs, liquidity conditions and failures in integrated protocols can reduce returns or principal.

What is YFI used for?

YFI is associated with Yearn governance. Current governance documentation says voting power moved to veYFI, which is obtained under the protocol's locking and participation design.

Does buying YFI deposit funds into a Yearn vault?

No. Holding the governance token and depositing an underlying asset into a vault are separate actions with different risks and mechanics.

Why are the 600% and 896% APYs misleading today?

Those figures captured a short launch incentive in July 2020. They do not describe a repeatable or current Yearn return and should not be used for investment projections.

Can a Yearn vault lose money?

Yes. Vaults depend on smart contracts and external strategies, and Yearn's V3 code explicitly does not guarantee the safety of strategies selected by authorised roles.

How should a user assess a current Yearn vault?

Check the official interface, chain, underlying asset, strategy composition, fees, liquidity, contract addresses, audit history and whether the quoted APY is sustainable.

Are old ygov.finance and pool links safe to use?

Do not treat archived links as current instructions. Navigate from Yearn's official domain, verify every contract and reject unsolicited migration or recovery messages.

Current official resources

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