YFI Jumps 14%, Closes in on Bitcoin's All-Time High

YFI, the governance token of decentralized finance protocol yEarn, is now worth $19,743, an increase of 14% in the past 24 hours.

YFI powers yEarn, or yearn.finance, a DeFi protocol that aggregates yields from other lending protocols. yEarn is one of the focal points of the DeFi ecosystem. Among other things, it directs users to all the different DeFi lending protocols and lists potential yields.

YFI is a governance token, meaning that holders can use it to vote on proposals for network upgrades. It can be earned by sticking your money in yEarn, a practice known as yield farming. But since its creation on July 17, the token’s taken off as a speculative asset. Its price has increased by 1,779% since its creation, according to data from metrics site CoinMarketCap.

Remember: this is a token YFI creator Andre Cronje described as “a completely valueless 0 supply token.” Said Cronje: “We reiterate, it has 0 financial value.”

"And just because we feel we didn’t stress it enough, 0 value. Don’t buy it. Earn it.," he said.

Now YFI is worth even more than Bitcoin, which is currently worth $11,491. YFI is closing in on Bitcoin’s all-time high, too. Bitcoin hit its peak of $20,089.00 on December 17, 2017, according to data from metrics site CoinMarketCap. YFI is thus a true crypto success story. 

The main difference between Bitcoin and YFI is the vastly different token supply. There's 18 million Bitcoin in circulation, compared to 29,963 circulating YFI tokens. This is why Bitcoin’s market cap, at $212 billion, is far higher than the market cap for YFI, which is $591 million—even though Bitcoin is worth a measly $11,491.