😢 Sad day, but @yieldyak_ has had an incredible 5+ year run and contributing to it has been the most fun of my career.
Rather than draw things out and drain the Treasury, we're proposing a sunset that we believe is in the best interest of $YAK holders 🐃🥛
Rather than draw things out and drain the Treasury, we're proposing a sunset that we believe is in the best interest of $YAK holders 🐃🥛
A proposal has been put forward by Core Contributor @ravageur77 which, if approved, would lead to an orderly sunset of the Yield Yak protocol later this year. Below is the full proposal for transparency.View quoted post on X
Protocol operations continue as per usual during this process.
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Proposal for an Orderly Sunset of Yield Yak
TL;DR
- We propose an orderly sunset of the Yield Yak protocol. If agreed on, the Treasury (minus winddown costs) will be dispersed to YAK holders. Claim #1 would begin in early November, followed by a second and final claim in December.
- All Vaults and Farms would move to withdrawal only by November. Vaults will be maintained and remain yield-bearing until December, after which deposits in underlying Vaults (aiAVAX, aiUSD, aiBTC, etc.) will no longer earn yield.
- Yield Yak’s front-end will be supported until at least Q2 2027, after which any withdrawals would need to be made via Block Explorer
- The Treasury is currently valued at ~$290,000 USD that will remain yield-bearing until the claim period. The Treasury is currently in a mix of USDC and AVAX, but would be consolidated into AVAX prior to the claim. YAK holders would burn YAK to receive AVAX during the treasury distribution.
- The Treasury has pulled all of its liquidity for YAK liquidity ahead of this proposal.
REASONING
Launched in the defi summer of 2021, Yield Yak has had an incredible run as one the longest running community-rooted defi protocols on Avalanche. The protocol survived multiple bear markets, and experienced incredible highs, notably YAK being the most valuable airdrop in Avalanche’s history, and reaching $750 Million in Deposits back in late ‘21. Yak Swap, our 100% free swap aggregator, has turned over billions in swap volume. And for the majority of the protocol's existence, Yield Yak has returned 100% of fees to YAK holders. However, the protocol has struggled to grow in the past 18 months, notably:
- Chain expansion proved difficult to acquire new users and ultimately unsuccessful
- We failed to convince Avalanche institutional partners (DATs, among others) or the Foundation to support Yield Yak's flagship vaults (notably aiAVAX, despite its position as the highest yield AVAX vault in the ecosystem). Our fee generation has relied on organic support from the community.
- The regulatory outlook for curated vaults isn’t promising, putting smaller protocols like ours in a potentially increasingly vulnerable position from a risk POV.
- $YAK holders currently receive 30% of revenue. It has been considered to move this to 0% and 100% to Treasury to bridge the gap between burn & revenue, but this felt unfair to YAK holders with no clear growth drivers in the pipeline.
Ultimately, it feels like the right time to sunset the protocol and also in the best interest of YAK holders as opposed to a slow drain of the Treasury.
SPECIFICS
Treasury
- Burn is currently $9.5K/month, but this is after already making reductions in recent months to bridge the gap with revenue.
- Treasury revenue sits at approx. ~$5K/month
- Treasury is currently made up of 3 assets: $AVAX (in aiAVAX), $USDC (in aiUSD), and a Pharaoh xPHAR position which stems from an original investment Contributors made back in 2023. What is proposed is that the AVAX and USDC will be consolidated into AVAX, which would be currently valued at ~$290K. The xPHAR position will be transferred to the remaining Team Operations / Contributors to compensate for winddown costs. In this way the Treasury dispersion can be simplified into one single token, without needing to liquidate and burn half of the value of the xPHAR position.
Timeline should this proposal go forward.
Late October:
- Deposits are disabled on all Vaults and Farms
- Revenue configured to go 100% to Treasury (so they can be collected to distribute to YAK holders in Claim #2; see below)
Early November:
Claim #1 goes live. This claim will be calculated as “Current Treasury Assets divided by YAK in distribution minus certain specific wallets (including the Treasury). The Claim will be live for 30 days from the point of creation. Any unclaimed assets will be distributed in Claim #2 to users who partook in Claim #1.
Early December:
- Remaining Contributor salaries are halted
- Vaults deposits will stop earning users yield
- Claim #2 goes live. This claim will be for unclaimed assets from Claim #1 + Revenue earned by the Treasury during Claim 1. Eligible wallets for Claim #2 will be wallets who participate in Claim #1.
Not before Q2 2027: Yield Yak front-end may no longer be supported, in which case withdrawals would need be made via Block explorer
aiBTC Stream Finance Impacted Users:
Contributors will facilitate any aiBTC compensation from the Stream Finance incident should a resolution come to pass in the future.
Next Steps
Community questions & discussion, followed by a DAO vote on Snapshot
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