This is a guide on how to buy YFI token from yearn.finance team. YFI is a really interesting DeFi token, which helps regular users utilize the full power of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) tools, including the now famous “yield farming”. This means you can simply own, for example yDAI, and get exposure to all yield farming opportunities from Compound to Balancer while also maximizing your yield in the process.
The YFI token is also interesting in that it is pretty much run and created by a single developer, Andre Cronje. This just shows how much impact a single developer can have on the entire ecosystem and create a protocol worth tens of millions of dollars on other money legos already built on Ethereum.
YFI is gaining momentum because it has proven to be a truly bottoms-up community driven project. There is no pre-mine or pre-sale or VCs or ‘thought leaders’ or other shenanigans. What is remarkable is that Andre, the developer, doesn’t even have any YFI reserved for his own work! That has attracted a lot of passionate community members to become stewards of the project.
After you’ve learned the basics, it is time to start learning how to buy YFI tokens. However, before that, let’s first learn about how to “farm” YFI tokens. Farming YFI tokens may be a better strategy than buying YFI tokens for some people. This is especially true for those who are ‘liquid’ in USD or DAI since most of the pools and farming opportunities for YFI are based on DAI and not ETH.
How to Farm YFI
At launch, there were three ways to farm YFI –
- On Curve, with the “Y” tokens (original reward completed)
- On Balancer, with the 2/98 YFI/DAI pool (original reward completed)
- On Balancer with the YFI/yCRV pool (reward expired on July 26, 2020)
The YFI governance then decided against continuing the program. Therefore, all rewards have now expired and you can no longer farm YFI. The only way to get YFI is to buy it from exchanges, i.e. from someone who has YFI. This is also why YFI is capped at 30,000.
How to Buy YFI
There are several places you can currently buy YFI via Decentralized Exchanges without account creation/KYC etc.
Step-1: Check YFI price on 1inch. 1inch is a crypto price aggregator that finds the best trade execution for you, i.e. the cheapest price. It does this by converting your crypto to YFI via any number of routes via any number of decentralized exchanges. Of late, their private market makers also provide better price than single exchanges, thus saving you even more money. The only downside is the gas costs tend to be high.
Step-2: Enter the crypto you want to sell in order to buy YFI. The good thing with 1inch is it takes care of all the conversion for you. For example, if you want to diversify out of LINK and buy YFI you can do this in one step. Same with even lower trade volume cryptos like RLC or other popular pairs like USDC or DAI.
Step-3: Connect your Web3 wallet. 1inch works with any popular wallet like MetaMask. No need to create an account or sign up to their services.
Step-4: Execute your trade. The YFI will show up in your wallet.
1inch is really good with converting the crypto you have via the best possible execution via multiple decentralized exchanges. For example, here is an example of their ‘Pathfinder’ algorithm – something very hard to replicate manually.
We suggest using DeFi exchanges like Uniswap, Balancer, and Kyber instead of centralized exchanges since you can execute the trade directly from your Web3 wallet like Metamask or Ledger instead of going through account creation, KYC, withdraw limits, etc.
All of these can be accessed via MetaMask. If you have a decent sized crypto portfolio, make sure to use a hardware wallet like Trezor or Ledger, which you can easily connect via MetaMask.
Alternately, currently the deepest liquidity pools for YFI are on Uniswap and Balancer, so you can also buy directly from them, although you should probably still check 1inch if there is a better price (there usually is).
If for some reason you don’t want to use decentralized exchanges above (e.g. if you are not a part of the Ethereum ecosystem and perhaps want to buy directly from BTC) then these are the centralized exchanges where you can buy YFI with your BTC.
Update: YFI is now listed on Binance with YFI/BTC and YFI/BNB pairs. If you already use Binance but don’t use DEXes on Ethereum yet, this may be the easiest way to get exposure to YFI.
Update-2: YFI has started trading on Coinbase Pro! You can sign up to Coinbase and automatically access Coinbase Pro to trade YFI. You can also buy YFI on Coinbase. Note however that Coinbase charges high fees so you are generally better off buying YFI on Uniswap or 1inch.
Buying YFI starting from fiat (like USD)
In the methods above, you need to start from crypto, like ETH, to buy YFI. If all you have are dollars or your local fiat currency, you can follow these steps –
- Buy ETH from Coinbase (use this link to get $10 when you purchase $100 of crypto).
- Transfer this ETH from Coinbase to MetaMask (or another Web3 wallet).
- Go to 1inch to exchange your ETH to YFI via decentralized exchanges without having to sign up for anything.
YFI is an ERC20 token on Ethereum, so you can store it in your Ethereum wallet like MetaMask. For larger sums, you can store your YFI in Ledger or Trezor, which are hardware wallets and provide much better security than a browser extension.
8 Responses to “How to Buy YFI Tokens from yearn.finance (DeFi Token)”
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1inch with Metamask worked.
When I tried to buy YFI, Uniswap price was better than Balancer, just so others are aware to check on 1inch before buying
You may be right – Uniswap seems to have a lot of trade volume, so it is possible that it might be cheaper at some times there, and the lower gas price is an added bonus.
It has been fluctuating though, so checking 1inch is best
YFI > BTC very soon. YFI supply is limited to 30,000 YFI only. No more will be minted. No premine. No VC allocation. No founder allocation. No team allocation. No BS. All in the hands of the community.
YFI is one of the only revenue generating tokens out there where the defi token gives real USD revenue to holders. Very few can pull this off – very long YFI. YFI dividends will be enough to live off of passive income in bull market this year. Don’t sleep on this. The only defi token that you need. No need for MKR, COMP, META, and other VC coins just YFI is enough for the portfolio
It already reached your price target 🙂 YFI is competitive with some of the larger defi tokens now in terms of marketcap but may have superior revenue potential.
How do u store yfi
You can store it in any Ethereum wallet (where you hold the private keys), so you can simply use MetaMask for smaller amounts. For larger amounts, you can use a hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor.
Do you know how to buy yETH? It is not on one inch.
The yETH vault is currently closed to new deposits. There is an ongoing issue with unwinding it with DAI, so once that is solved, I am guessing it will open again. To get yETH, all you then need to do is deposit ETH or WETH into the corresponding y-vault.