I do want to push back gently on the “Use at Own Risk” clause from YIP-72 §8 that’s been referenced a lot (the one saying Yearn contributors and YFI holders “are not involved and will not compensate users for any critical failure”).
With respect, applying it here as a hard “no compensation” feels mismatched and honestly a bit disappointing.
Of course we’re all experienced crypto users, we know the risks, accept that full compensation might not be feasible, and aren’t expecting the treasury to be drained for every incident. That’s fine; DeFi is risky by nature.
But using that clause to justify zero help (beyond recovered funds) just doesn’t sit right, because this exploit wasn’t about the governable parts the clause seems designed to cover. Self-governance in yETH is mainly about voting on basket composition, which LSTs to include, their percentage weights, tolerance bands, etc. If we had voted badly and caused a depeg or slashing, fair enough: own the risk.
This was different. It stemmed from core implementation flaws that no st-yETH vote could ever touch or prevent. Those were deployment and design decisions made before launch.
yETH was marketed for over a year as one of Yearn’s flagship products—front-and-center on yearn.fi, heavily promoted as the smart ETH LST solution, with Yearn happily collecting its performance fee the entire time. It built real trust and TVL under the Yearn brand.
So when a core code bug (not a governance mistake) causes losses, leaning on a disclaimer to keep the treasury completely untouched feels more like legal shielding than the honest, fair-play spirit Yearn has always prided itself on.
I’m not demanding full reimbursement or anything that would hurt the protocol long-term. Some form of meaningful partial support would already go a huge way toward showing that Yearn stands behind its products when things go wrong for reasons outside users’ control.
Just my honest take as an affected depositor. Happy to discuss or refine idea
Nothing is decided yet, but seeing that clause mentioned so many times does seem to point in the direction things are heading.
My considerations can be evaluated reading the yETH discussione here: YIP-72: Launch yETH
Attaching a screenshot as example
