The most useful number on a digital asset desk on most days is not a token price. It is the real yield on ten-year government paper, because that is what an allocator gives up to hold something that pays nothing, and it is quoted daily.
2.01%
Ten-year real yield, 20 March 2026
4.39%
Ten-year nominal yield
2.38%
Ten-year breakeven inflation
68%
Percentile against its own three years
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). Computed by Institutional Asset Journal.
Ten-year Treasury inflation-indexed yield
Daily, percent. The real cost of holding an asset that pays no coupon.
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). Computed by Institutional Asset Journal.
The last time the real yield stood at or above this level was 23 July 2025.
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.
