What is Harvest Finance (FARM)?
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🟢 The simple version
Plain English — no jargon. Start here.
Harvest Finance was one of the first major DeFi yield aggregators (September 2020) — automatically compounding farming rewards for users — until a $34M flash loan oracle manipulation exploit in October 2020, after which it rebuilt and continued operating.
Pioneer and the 2020 hack
Harvest launched September 2020 during DeFi Summer, reaching $1B+ TVL rapidly with FARM token distributions. October 26, 2020: attacker used flash loans to manipulate Curve Y pool USDC price, exploiting Harvest's use of that price to calculate vault NAV. ~$34M stolen via repeated inflate/deflate cycle. ~$2.5M returned. Harvest rebuilt oracle security and launched IFARM (interest-bearing FARM). ~690K FARM capped supply (Yearn-like scarcity). Profit share to FARM stakers from vault performance fees. Is FARM legal in India? Yes. 30% tax, 1% TDS apply.
🟡 A bit more detail
For when you want to go a little deeper.
FARM post-2020
Despite the hack, Harvest continued building. Active on Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, and others. ~690K FARM capped supply with profit sharing remains interesting — real yield from strategy performance fees accrues to FARM stakers. Smaller TVL than peak but operational.
🟣 The full technical picture
For the technically curious.
Key facts
- Token: FARM (~690K, capped)
- Pioneer: DeFi Summer 2020
- Oct 2020: ~$34M flash loan hack (oracle manipulation)
- FARM yield: Profit share from vault fees