Whitepaper:
17 July 2020, Yearn Finance created one of the most memeable phrases of DeFi Summer: the "nil (or zero) value governance token".
Earning nil value governance tokens was simple: provide liquidity, stake the output tokens in distribution contracts via an easy-to-use interface, and earn a (governance controlled) amount of useless dogshit per day.
This first wave led into DeFi Summer, where developers rushed to build the next big protocol, promising outsized returns and 5000% APYs.
Open source code created a culture of forks: Compound, Yearn, Aave, Maker Dao, OHM, all took center stage.
The movement did however create fundamental questions on unit economics, the nature of token & code: how could something said to have "zero value" paradoxically be perceived to have value assigned by the free market?
This is because of one simple proposition: the nil value governance token is a meme.
Why would anyone want to acquire or participate in ecosystems of nil value; stake their nil value tokens in yVaults; participate in nil value governance, or even fork open source code to create your protocol for creating nil value?
Where fundamental value is found in the next big meme, financial nihilism has taken over DeFi. Now, every d'app is in the end-game: using the last of its DAO treasury to build its own chain; even McDonald's is getting an L1; VCs on the brink of liquidation are persuading their PortCos to release L2s no user wants or needs (not that they even have users anyway). Canto is re-releasing a side chain. The future is looking fucking bleak.
💀💀💀
BUT, where memecoins are outperforming the market: decentralised finance can seek refuage in its own cultural prescience: the nil-value governance token.
This is the renaissance of that movement.
milady