6 ms·

Software bug causes YAM cryptocurrency to implode two days after launch

85 points by seanhunter 6y ago

henriquez 6y ago
> “If the funding goal is reached, upon the completion of the audit, we plan to support the launch of YAM 2.0 via migration contract from YAM.” Shit happens. At least they’re undeterred. Couldn’t this just be fixed with an immediate hard fork? They’re new enough that probably nobody would protest.
- dgellow 6y ago
  Maybe they are new enough that nobody would follow their lead
- ryebit 6y ago
  It wasn't a separate block chain, just a smart contract running on Ethereum. And it was an experiment the creator advertised at the start as crazy and untested... So the odds of walking the Ethereum chain back are about like a penny stock convincing the NYSE and all traders in world to walk back all their trades for the last two days.
  - wtracy 6y ago
    In this case, I imagine that a "hard fork" would entail starting a new smart contract and copying over the old balances.
langitbiru 6y ago
It's very interesting to see what happened on Ethereum this week. After YAM fiasco, there is another drama. Someone front-runned the official project by launching the code first on Ethereum. https://twitter.com/CurveFinance/status/1294088489118715905 https://twitter.com/CurveFinance/status/1294088489118715905
- flarex 6y ago
  They probably shouldn't have published their admin (public) keys in advance. That way it would have been impossible to "front-run".
- eru 6y ago
  Does it make sense to call that 'frontrunning'?
teknopurge 6y ago
To be fair YAM was an experiment, always communicated as-such, and was intended at-best to implode.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  People threw real money at something that was intended at-best to implode? Did that intention make it into the sales pitch?
  - mcherm 6y ago
    Yes... (I suppose it depends on which "sales pitch" you listened to). Sometimes people are just crazy and stupid.
- teshier-A 6y ago
  This tweet is unrelated then ? @brockjelmore "i’m sorry everyone. i’ve failed. thank you for the insane support today. i’m sick with grief" https://twitter.com/brockjelmore/status/1293820056682377216 https://twitter.com/brockjelmore/status/1293820056682377216
- hamstercat 6y ago
  Experiments should not involve other people’s money. Both companies and individuals do it all the time, but involving « investors » (mind the quotes lol) for something that’s expecting to fail is simply irresponsible.
_ink_ 6y ago
Why did it become half a billion dollar worth in one day? What is special about YAM?
- dtech 6y ago
  That figure was the market cap, the price at which a token was sold multiplied by the number of tokens on the market. If a billion tokens are available, the market cap is $0.5B if you sell a single token for $0.5. That's what happened yesterday more or less. You won't be able sell all tokens for $0.5B, so saying they are worth $0.5B is misleading for such a volatile and young project. The metric works much better (but not perfect) for established shares, financial products or contracts for physical objects.
  - eru 6y ago
    Yes. To give an example: many bitcoins are lost (ie deleted private key), or in accounts that presumably will never trade, so you should remove those when calculating bitcoin total market capitalisation.
    - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
      Except that it's literally impossible to distinguish between a "lost" bitcoin (no private key) and one sitting in a cold wallet (private key exists offline).
      - Scoundreller 6y ago
        Lots of things are impossible to calculate 100% precisely, but that doesn’t stop anyone from building models anyway. Just like “How much US$ is out there in paper currency?”. Impossible to know, especially as it’s never been demonetized, but models exist and are used.
- geek_at 6y ago
  I hear their self destruct feature works pretty well
nautilus12 6y ago
It seems like software defined scarcity in this case almost defeats the point of the currency because if it's not based on anything hard and immovable it can be bypassed. It's almost as though you need some non digital impossible to fake process to back your currency. Like maybe digging in the ground and pulling out precious metals?
carterklein13 6y ago
I keep seeing the rhetoric that it was just an experiment and that it was expected to implode. Sure, okay, maybe it was - but in that case, the hype built around it was completely inexcusable. From its creator to shills on Twitter, I hadn't seen such fervent shilling (obviously, they were all in a prisoner's dilemma with it, but still).
- goblin89 6y ago
  All cryptocurrencies live or die by “shilling”. Like with any software, it’s not terribly likely that any single one of them is entirely bug-free, but the loyalty of invested early adopters is what hides mishaps from the public and persists the hype.
  - carterklein13 6y ago
    The problem is, this was technically a financial instrument (it falls under DeFi - decentralized finance) that was completely unaudited, and could've been released in stages, on a testnet, etc. To use an analogy, this was essentially pushed directly to prod, not even to master... unless I'm missing something. It just seemed so reckless to me.
- ryebit 6y ago
  It's true there was a lot of shilling; but there were also (IMO) plenty of warnings. --- The official YAM announcement said things such as: > YAM holds zero inherent value > This was a 10-day project from start to launch. We STRONGLY urge caution to anyone who chooses to engage with these contracts, and think a proper professional audit would be highly advisable if this project gets any meaningful use. (see https://medium.com/@yamfinance/yam-finance-d0ad577250c7 https://medium.com/@yamfinance/yam-finance-d0ad577250c7) --- There was shilling, but there were also people like Taylor Monahan of MyCrypto.com (one of the main Ethereum webwallets): > please dont be the poor fucker who loses more money than they can afford to lose on an experimental mashup of all the defi things that was started 10 days ago. (see https://twitter.com/tayvano_/status/1293236568614871045 https://twitter.com/tayvano_/status/1293236568614871045) --- and DCInvestor (mod of r/ethfinance, one of the main social sites for Ethereum): > This is financial advice: Do not buy $YAM. (see https://twitter.com/iamDCinvestor/status/1293555904378474498 https://twitter.com/iamDCinvestor/status/1293555904378474498) --- and Eric (?last name?) ("econoar" of the Into The Ether podcast, one of the bigger news reporters within the ecosystem): > Everyone is about to go crazy over this but please for the love of god read the whole post. "Audits: None." Just assume you're going to lose everything if you play with it and you're fine. (see https://twitter.com/econoar/status/1293974467794726912 https://twitter.com/econoar/status/1293974467794726912) (edit: added descriptions of who these people are)
syllable_studio 6y ago
I found that these two articles provide some good context about YAM and yield farming. It seems like there is some messy, but really interesting experimentation happening in DeFi right now. https://www.coindesk.com/defi-degens-gaming-ethereum-money-legos https://www.coindesk.com/defi-degens-gaming-ethereum-money-l... https://www.coindesk.com/defi-yield-farming-comp-token-explained https://www.coindesk.com/defi-yield-farming-comp-token-expla...
- mtnGoat 6y ago
  If you look into the backgrounds of a number of there big proponents of defi, it gets scarier.
  - dgellow 6y ago
    What do you mean?
netsectoday 6y ago
I probably wouldn't trust someone 2-years out of college to manage my money (YAM creator's capital management firm). I sure as hell wouldn't invest in their home-grown crypto currency. Story Headline: Recent college grad doesn't know what they are doing and it ended as expected.
- blackflame7000 6y ago
  I think the moral of the story is to focus less on making the business work and more on finding suckers to solicit investments from. Just like WeWork.
johnwheeler 6y ago
I guess they didn’t see any reason to fix it https://github.com/yam-finance/yam-protocol/blob/master/contracts/token/YAM.sol#L340 https://github.com/yam-finance/yam-protocol/blob/master/cont...

85 points by seanhunter 6y ago

> “If the funding goal is reached, upon the completion of the audit, we plan to support the launch of YAM 2.0 via migration contract from YAM.” Shit happens. At least they’re undeterred. Couldn’t this just be fixed with an immediate hard fork? They’re new enough that probably nobody would protest.

dgellow 6y ago
Maybe they are new enough that nobody would follow their lead
ryebit 6y ago
It wasn't a separate block chain, just a smart contract running on Ethereum. And it was an experiment the creator advertised at the start as crazy and untested... So the odds of walking the Ethereum chain back are about like a penny stock convincing the NYSE and all traders in world to walk back all their trades for the last two days.
- wtracy 6y ago
  In this case, I imagine that a "hard fork" would entail starting a new smart contract and copying over the old balances.

langitbiru 6y ago

It's very interesting to see what happened on Ethereum this week. After YAM fiasco, there is another drama. Someone front-runned the official project by launching the code first on Ethereum. https://twitter.com/CurveFinance/status/1294088489118715905 https://twitter.com/CurveFinance/status/1294088489118715905

flarex 6y ago
They probably shouldn't have published their admin (public) keys in advance. That way it would have been impossible to "front-run".
eru 6y ago
Does it make sense to call that 'frontrunning'?

teknopurge 6y ago

To be fair YAM was an experiment, always communicated as-such, and was intended at-best to implode.

jjoonathan 6y ago
People threw real money at something that was intended at-best to implode? Did that intention make it into the sales pitch?
- mcherm 6y ago
  Yes... (I suppose it depends on which "sales pitch" you listened to). Sometimes people are just crazy and stupid.
teshier-A 6y ago
This tweet is unrelated then ? @brockjelmore "i’m sorry everyone. i’ve failed. thank you for the insane support today. i’m sick with grief" https://twitter.com/brockjelmore/status/1293820056682377216 https://twitter.com/brockjelmore/status/1293820056682377216
hamstercat 6y ago
Experiments should not involve other people’s money. Both companies and individuals do it all the time, but involving « investors » (mind the quotes lol) for something that’s expecting to fail is simply irresponsible.

_ink_ 6y ago

Why did it become half a billion dollar worth in one day? What is special about YAM?

dtech 6y ago
That figure was the market cap, the price at which a token was sold multiplied by the number of tokens on the market. If a billion tokens are available, the market cap is $0.5B if you sell a single token for $0.5. That's what happened yesterday more or less. You won't be able sell all tokens for $0.5B, so saying they are worth $0.5B is misleading for such a volatile and young project. The metric works much better (but not perfect) for established shares, financial products or contracts for physical objects.
- eru 6y ago
  Yes. To give an example: many bitcoins are lost (ie deleted private key), or in accounts that presumably will never trade, so you should remove those when calculating bitcoin total market capitalisation.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
    Except that it's literally impossible to distinguish between a "lost" bitcoin (no private key) and one sitting in a cold wallet (private key exists offline).
    - Scoundreller 6y ago
      Lots of things are impossible to calculate 100% precisely, but that doesn’t stop anyone from building models anyway. Just like “How much US$ is out there in paper currency?”. Impossible to know, especially as it’s never been demonetized, but models exist and are used.
geek_at 6y ago
I hear their self destruct feature works pretty well

nautilus12 6y ago

It seems like software defined scarcity in this case almost defeats the point of the currency because if it's not based on anything hard and immovable it can be bypassed. It's almost as though you need some non digital impossible to fake process to back your currency. Like maybe digging in the ground and pulling out precious metals?

carterklein13 6y ago

I keep seeing the rhetoric that it was just an experiment and that it was expected to implode. Sure, okay, maybe it was - but in that case, the hype built around it was completely inexcusable. From its creator to shills on Twitter, I hadn't seen such fervent shilling (obviously, they were all in a prisoner's dilemma with it, but still).

goblin89 6y ago
All cryptocurrencies live or die by “shilling”. Like with any software, it’s not terribly likely that any single one of them is entirely bug-free, but the loyalty of invested early adopters is what hides mishaps from the public and persists the hype.
- carterklein13 6y ago
  The problem is, this was technically a financial instrument (it falls under DeFi - decentralized finance) that was completely unaudited, and could've been released in stages, on a testnet, etc. To use an analogy, this was essentially pushed directly to prod, not even to master... unless I'm missing something. It just seemed so reckless to me.
ryebit 6y ago
It's true there was a lot of shilling; but there were also (IMO) plenty of warnings. --- The official YAM announcement said things such as: > YAM holds zero inherent value > This was a 10-day project from start to launch. We STRONGLY urge caution to anyone who chooses to engage with these contracts, and think a proper professional audit would be highly advisable if this project gets any meaningful use. (see https://medium.com/@yamfinance/yam-finance-d0ad577250c7 https://medium.com/@yamfinance/yam-finance-d0ad577250c7) --- There was shilling, but there were also people like Taylor Monahan of MyCrypto.com (one of the main Ethereum webwallets): > please dont be the poor fucker who loses more money than they can afford to lose on an experimental mashup of all the defi things that was started 10 days ago. (see https://twitter.com/tayvano_/status/1293236568614871045 https://twitter.com/tayvano_/status/1293236568614871045) --- and DCInvestor (mod of r/ethfinance, one of the main social sites for Ethereum): > This is financial advice: Do not buy $YAM. (see https://twitter.com/iamDCinvestor/status/1293555904378474498 https://twitter.com/iamDCinvestor/status/1293555904378474498) --- and Eric (?last name?) ("econoar" of the Into The Ether podcast, one of the bigger news reporters within the ecosystem): > Everyone is about to go crazy over this but please for the love of god read the whole post. "Audits: None." Just assume you're going to lose everything if you play with it and you're fine. (see https://twitter.com/econoar/status/1293974467794726912 https://twitter.com/econoar/status/1293974467794726912) (edit: added descriptions of who these people are)

syllable_studio 6y ago

I found that these two articles provide some good context about YAM and yield farming. It seems like there is some messy, but really interesting experimentation happening in DeFi right now. https://www.coindesk.com/defi-degens-gaming-ethereum-money-legos https://www.coindesk.com/defi-degens-gaming-ethereum-money-l... https://www.coindesk.com/defi-yield-farming-comp-token-explained https://www.coindesk.com/defi-yield-farming-comp-token-expla...

mtnGoat 6y ago
If you look into the backgrounds of a number of there big proponents of defi, it gets scarier.
- dgellow 6y ago
  What do you mean?

netsectoday 6y ago

I probably wouldn't trust someone 2-years out of college to manage my money (YAM creator's capital management firm). I sure as hell wouldn't invest in their home-grown crypto currency. Story Headline: Recent college grad doesn't know what they are doing and it ended as expected.

blackflame7000 6y ago
I think the moral of the story is to focus less on making the business work and more on finding suckers to solicit investments from. Just like WeWork.

johnwheeler 6y ago

I guess they didn’t see any reason to fix it https://github.com/yam-finance/yam-protocol/blob/master/contracts/token/YAM.sol#L340 https://github.com/yam-finance/yam-protocol/blob/master/cont...