BitMEX CEO Arthus Hayes Sees YFI Token Rising to $100k

Yearn Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, is currently one of the world’s top cryptocurrency projects right now. Headlining what appears to be a strong DeFi push, the project’s token — with the ticker YFI — recently surpassed Bitcoin, to the delight of many.

YFI’s Quick Price Pump

On August 20, reports confirmed that the YFI token had surpassed Bitcoin in terms of price. The product, which launched just last month, has continued to surge significantly, as it stopped short of crossing the $39,000 mark on Binance this weekend.

Pumping the asset’s stock, Arthur Hayes, the founder of top derivatives exchange BitMEX, said on Twitter that the asset would continue to and reach a $100,000 valuation. His tweet included a screenshot of the asset’s price, which showed a 41 percent surge in the past day.

While it’s easy to believe that YFI might be heading to the moon, it’s worth noting that there are some catches. For one, the asset’s price is surging primarily due to a hard-capped supply. There are only 30,000 tokens available — a number that is much lower than most cryptocurrencies.

The asset is currently valued at $29,7560, but its market cap is only $891.6 million, per data from Coinmarketcap. This valuation makes YFI the 26th-most valuable cryptocurrency. This unique monetary supply made noted crypto investor Ian Lee explaining that YFI surpassing Bitcoin is more of a “psychological event.”

In a tweet, he explained:

“YFI ‘flipping’ BTC price is arbitrary & more psychologically than practically important. What is important is what yearn.finance is doing & Andre Cronje is building in DeFi.”

Essentially, the asset’s incredibly low makes it almost unreasonable to compare it to Bitcoin merely because of its surging value.

DeFi On the Rise

Despite all this, YFI’s performance so far has been quite impressive. So far, the asset has been one of the most impressive DeFi concepts, headlining what many in the industry believe to be the sector’s golden age.

Last week, the total value of capital locked in DeFi protocols surpassed $7 billion for the first time. The rise marked a 271 percent increase in the metric over the past two months, according to data from DeFi Pulse.

Lending protocol Aave is the largest DeFi project, with $1.71 billion locked. MakerDAO comes in second with $1.45 billion. Curve Finance, Yearn Finance, and derivatives project Synthetix make up the top five with $1.25 billion, $945 million, and $869 million, respectively.

It’s worth noting that six projects are significantly headlining the growth of the DeFi sector. The top five projects mentioned above — along with sixth-placed Compound and its $794 million in locked funds – make up for 91 percent of the sector’s valuation.

Despite the sketchy nature, however, the DeFi sector has withstood skepticism of late. If things keep going at this pace, estimates claim that it would be worth more than $27 billion by the end of 2020.