Bitcoin Is Exploding But Still Losing Out To A Smaller Cryptocurrency

While Bitcoin is in the limelight for crossing the psychologically-important $18,000 mark, another coin has outpaced the weekly gains made by the apex cryptocurrency.

What Happened: Yearn Finance (YFI), a decentralized finance (DeFi) coin, gained 15.93% in the 7-day period leading up to press time — beating Bitcoin’s gains of 14.48%.

Yearn Finance, launched in February, is an aggregator service for investors and allows DeFi investing and yield farming. YFI gained 4.76% in a 24-hour period reaching $21,513.89, nearly rivaling the 5.77% gains made by Bitcoin.

The DeFi cryptocurrency had reached $41,382.98 on Sept. 14 before plunging as low as $9,014.91 on Nov. 6. YFI has appreciated nearly 139% since then till press time.

A trader, who goes by the pseudonym “Benjamin Blunts,” said before the coin’s $40,000 rally that it would reach the near $50,000 mark. The current market cap of YFI is nearly $650.21 million. 

Why It Matters: YFI’s surge was led by a perfect storm as strong technicals, new products, yield farming, and growth in the popularity of DeFi liquidity pools buoyed the cryptocurrency, Cointelegraph reported.

There are 30,000 YFI tokens in circulation and Yearn’s creator Andre Cronje did not set aside any for himself. However, more YFI can be minted, according to CoinDesk.

“I think the ‘no inflation’ meme is here to stay,” according to Tarun Chitra, a member of Yearn’s multisig — an equivalent to the board of directors.

Tarun told CoinDesk there are other ways for the system to “monetize.”

Price Action: YFI traded 4.76% higher at $21,513.89 at press time while Bitcoin traded 5.77% higher at $17,599.77.

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