Yield Basis (YB)

Overview

Yield Basis is a decentralized finance protocol built to help holders of tokenized Bitcoin and other crypto assets provide liquidity to on-chain markets. Its token, YB, supports rewards, governance, and the distribution of protocol fees. The protocol’s main goal is to let liquidity providers earn trading fees while keeping their position closely tied to the price of the asset they deposited. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

In a typical liquidity pool, a person deposits two assets so traders can exchange one for the other. When their prices change, the pool changes the amounts it holds. A provider may then withdraw less value than they would have had by simply holding their original assets. This difference is called impermanent loss. Yield Basis uses borrowed crvUSD, a stablecoin in the Curve ecosystem, and automated rebalancing to address that problem. Its design aims to preserve exposure to the deposited asset while the pool earns fees from trading activity. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

History & Team

From Curve to Yield Basis

Michael Egorov, the founder of Curve Finance, founded Yield Basis. The project’s EU crypto-asset white paper also names Alltime as a co-founder. Basis Yield AG, a company registered in Zug, Switzerland, is identified as the developer of the protocol and issuer of YB. The white paper lists team members working in growth, operations, marketing, and regional development. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

The project grew out of work on how automated market makers handle changing asset prices. That link to Curve matters: Yield Basis uses Curve-style trading pools and crvUSD in its liquidity design. Its development included mathematical modeling, Vyper smart contracts, and outside reviews of the code. YB became available for trading on Kraken in October 2025, followed by a Binance spot listing. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

The issuer’s white paper names investors including SevenX, Delphi Ventures, AntAlpha, Amber Group, Aquarius, Bitscale, Mirana, and Chorus One. Investor funding supports the company’s development and operations; it is separate from the fees generated by the protocol’s trading pools. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

Technology & How It Works

Liquidity with borrowed crvUSD

Yield Basis starts with an asset such as wrapped Bitcoin. “Wrapped” means Bitcoin is represented by a token that can be used in Ethereum-based applications. When a user deposits an accepted asset, the protocol pairs it with borrowed crvUSD and supplies both sides to a trading pool. The target position is roughly twice the value of the asset first deposited: one part comes from the deposit, and the other from borrowed stablecoins. (binance.com)

The user receives a token representing a share of that liquidity position, such as a ybBTC-style token for a Bitcoin market. This position token serves a different purpose from YB, the governance and rewards token. As traders swap assets in the underlying pool, they pay fees. Yield Basis uses a rebalancing system to adjust the leveraged position when prices move, with arbitrage traders carrying out transactions that help bring it back toward its target. (binance.com)

A simple example shows why the adjustment matters. Suppose Bitcoin rises. A conventional Bitcoin–stablecoin pool tends to sell some Bitcoin as traders use it, leaving the provider with less Bitcoin than they started with. Yield Basis changes the position’s borrowing and pool exposure as conditions shift. The aim is for the provider’s remaining claim to follow Bitcoin more closely while still taking part in trading-fee income. That outcome depends on the pool and rebalancing system working as designed. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

The protocol also has hybrid-vault contracts. These let a user place crvUSD in a supported vault to back a larger allocation to Yield Basis markets. An independent assessment describes vaults that hold both the user’s liquidity-position tokens and crvUSD backing. This adds another way to use the system while keeping its stablecoin requirements visible in the contract design. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

Tokenomics & Utility

YB, rewards, and voting

YB is the protocol’s incentive and governance token. It is distinct from the tokens that record a user’s share of a particular liquidity pool. A provider can choose a route focused on trading-fee yield or stake their position tokens in a gauge to receive YB emissions instead. A gauge is a contract that tracks staked positions and distributes rewards. The protocol’s interface presents these as trading-yield and token-yield choices. (binance.com)

YB holders can lock their tokens to receive veYB, short for vote-escrowed YB. Locking gives them voting power that depends on the amount locked and the lock period. Among other decisions, veYB holders can direct how YB rewards are allocated across eligible markets. They can also receive a share of protocol fees through the system’s fee-distribution rules. Locking commits the YB for the selected period, rather than leaving it immediately transferable. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

The stated maximum supply is one billion YB. The issuer’s distribution plan assigns 30% to incentives, 25% to the team, 12% to investors, 12.5% to the ecosystem, 7.5% to protocol development, 7.5% to Curve licensing, 3% to initial liquidity and early incentives, and 2.5% to the public offering. Team and investor allocations have scheduled vesting, while incentive tokens are distributed through an emissions system. These schedules spread different categories of tokens over time rather than releasing them all in the same way. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

Ecosystem & Use Cases

The clearest use case is liquidity provision. A holder deposits a supported asset into a Yield Basis market, receives a token representing the position, and chooses between fee-focused yield and YB rewards. Traders, meanwhile, use the underlying pools to exchange assets. The two activities are linked: trading creates fees, and deposited assets provide the liquidity that makes trades possible. (binance.com)

Yield Basis began with pools for tokenized forms of Bitcoin, including WBTC, cbBTC, and tBTC. Its broader design also addresses Ether-based liquidity. This gives holders of major crypto assets a way to put those assets to work in on-chain markets without first selling their exposure to the asset. Position tokens can also serve as building blocks for other decentralized-finance strategies where integrations support them. (binance.com)

Governance is another practical use. A veYB holder can take part in choices about reward direction, connecting the token to the markets that need incentives. Hybrid vaults extend the set of possible strategies by linking a user’s market position to crvUSD held as backing. Together, these features make Yield Basis both a liquidity system and a set of tools for organizing participation in it. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

Advantages & Challenges

Yield Basis combines two features that often pull in different directions: exposure to an asset’s price and income from supplying that asset to a trading pool. Its single-asset deposit flow is easier to understand from the user’s side than manually assembling a leveraged two-token position. The choice between trading-fee yield and YB rewards also lets participants select the form of return that fits their role in the ecosystem. (binance.com)

Its main challenges come from the same machinery that makes that design possible. The pool needs access to crvUSD borrowing capacity, and rebalancing has a cost. Fee income depends on trading activity, while YB rewards depend on emission and governance settings. A market can also have a limit on new deposits. These factors mean the available yield and room to participate can differ between markets and over time. The project has commissioned independent reviews of its core and hybrid-vault contracts as its technology has developed. (forum.yieldbasis.com)

Where to Buy & Wallets

YB is available on Kraken and Binance in supported regions. Binance offers spot trading and other eligible purchase methods, depending on the customer’s location and account. Availability on any exchange is governed by that platform’s regional rules. (blog.kraken.com)

YB is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, so it can be held in an Ethereum wallet that supports ERC-20 assets, such as MetaMask. A wallet may display YB automatically or require the token’s contract address to be imported. The Ethereum contract address published in Binance’s listing announcement is 0x01791F726B4103694969820be083196cC7c045fF. An exchange account can also hold purchased YB, while a compatible self-custody wallet is used to interact directly with on-chain features such as locking. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

Regulatory & Compliance

Basis Yield AG is organized under Swiss law and has published a crypto-asset white paper for the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework, known as MiCA. The white paper classifies YB as a crypto-asset other than an asset-referenced token or e-money token. Its publication is a disclosure step; the document states that it has not been approved by an EU competent authority. Access through exchanges follows each platform’s rules in the jurisdictions where it operates. For example, Kraken excluded residents of the United States, Canada, and Australia from its original YB token sale. (docs.yieldbasis.com)

Shariah compliance calls for a separate assessment of how the protocol earns and distributes returns. Yield Basis uses crvUSD borrowing and charges associated with that borrowing. Islamic finance standards place particular importance on how loans and interest are structured. The issuer’s published white paper does not provide a Shariah certification or a halal determination for YB, so its religious classification remains unestablished in that document. (binance.com)

Future Outlook

Yield Basis’s development centers on expanding the assets and market structures that can use its liquidity design. Research published through the project’s forum discusses pool settings, rebalancing, and the relationship between growing crvUSD use and the stablecoin’s stability. Hybrid-vault development addresses the capacity available to some depositors by adding stablecoin backing. These efforts point to a continuing focus on making the underlying markets work at a wider range of sizes. (forum.yieldbasis.com)

YB’s longer-term role will follow the use of those markets. More eligible pools would give liquidity providers more places to participate and veYB holders more choices when directing incentives. The important measure of the model is whether trading fees, rebalancing, borrowing capacity, and reward distribution continue to work together as the ecosystem develops. (binance.com)

Summary

Yield Basis brings a distinct approach to on-chain liquidity: it pairs deposited crypto assets with borrowed crvUSD and rebalances positions to keep their exposure closer to holding the asset itself. YB connects that technology to rewards, fee sharing, and community decisions through veYB voting. Its place in decentralized finance rests on both parts working together—the trading pools that create activity and the token system that guides participation. (binance.com)