The front end of the curve is where stablecoin reserves actually sit, which makes it the most directly relevant rate on this desk. An issuer holding short-dated bills against a non-yielding liability earns this spread on every dollar in circulation, and the holder of the token earns nothing.
3.66%
Overnight secured rate, 27 April 2026
3.68%
Three-month Treasury bill
−2bp
Overnight against the bill
0bp
Change over ninety days
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). Computed by Institutional Asset Journal.
Secured overnight financing rate
Daily, percent.
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). Computed by Institutional Asset Journal.
Why a rates column sits on this desk
Bitcoin pays no coupon. Every allocation to it is therefore financed at the return available on something that does, and the cleanest version of that is the real yield on ten-year government paper. When the real yield rises, the cost of holding a non-yielding asset rises with it, and the case has to work harder. That relationship does not require anyone to believe anything about blockchains.
How this was measured
- Series are taken from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis via its public CSV endpoint, which needs no key and returns the full published history. Treasury yields are constant-maturity par yields, not the yield on any particular security. The ten-year inflation-indexed series is the real yield used here as a hurdle rate; the breakeven is the difference between it and the nominal. Option-adjusted spreads are ICE BofA index levels. A piece dated one day reads the most recent observation on or before the day before, because these series publish with a lag, and every figure names the date it belongs to. Observations are not carried forward across holidays.
