Survival Guide for Volatile Markets: A Complete Guide to Stablecoin Yield
- Core View: During market downturns and volatility, holding stablecoins and utilizing yield products offered by exchanges and on-chain protocols has become an effective strategy to hedge against market risks and inflation. However, attention must be paid to the differences in yield structure, liquidity, and risk among different products.
- Key Elements:
- Major exchanges offer various stablecoin wealth management products, such as Binance's U-Saving (approx. 10.13% APY), Bybit's BYUSDT (6.89% APY), and Kraken's USDG (5.25% APY), characterized by convenient operation and relatively lower risk.
- On-chain wealth management protocols offer higher potential yields, such as Unitas USDu (13.82% APY) and Concrete USDT (11.49% APY), but carry smart contract risks. Furthermore, some yields are settled in protocol tokens, introducing uncertainty to actual returns.
- Interest rate separation protocols like Pendle allow users to engage in high-leverage interest rate speculation by trading YT (yield tokens). For example, USDG's YT leverage is approximately 99x. However, high yield comes with high risk, and the returns may depend on points or token value.
- The article emphasizes that a high APY does not equate to being risk-free. Investors need to carefully examine the underlying mechanisms, redemption conditions (e.g., lock-up periods, waiting times), and settlement methods (stablecoin or token) of the products.
Original Author: Sanqing, Foresight News
In a bear market, cash is king.
But holding cash doesn't mean staying idle. Bitcoin is oscillating within a range, an altcoin season seems distant, and the profit/loss curve of futures positions is wearing down near the zero line. Time costs are ticking, opportunity costs are ticking, and inflation is ticking. Holding coins and waiting is itself a form of hidden loss. Savvy capital has long withdrawn from high-risk speculation, turning instead to earn interest on stablecoins, using yield to hedge against market noise and compound interest to fill the waiting gap.
Exchanges
Binance U Principal-Guaranteed Earn: ~10.13% APY, capped at 10,000 U, daily interest payout, ends on March 20 at 7:59. U, short for United Stables, is fully backed 1:1 by cash and audited reserves.
Binance USD1 Holding Airdrop: Hold USD1 to share 235 million WLFI tokens, distributed proportionally every Friday at 8:00, ends on March 20 at 8:00. Leverage/futures accounts enjoy a 1.2x multiplier. The first three distributions had reference APYs of 6.82%, 6.99%, and 7.10%, which become 8.18%, 8.39%, and 8.52% after the 1.2x multiplier. USD1 obtained by borrowing other stablecoins counts only 30% of the leveraged portion towards the eligible balance.
Bybit BYUSDT: 6.89% APY, capped at 100,000 U, interest paid daily after 8:00. Serves as eligible collateral in the UTA Unified Account, supports loop lending operations, with borrowing rates typically around 3%. BYUSDT is a platform-specific token launched by Bybit, tokenizing users' USDT balances staked in flexible savings, pegged 1:1 to USDT. BYUSDT does not support on-chain transfers or withdrawals and circulates only within the Bybit platform.
HTX U: 6% APY, capped at 5 million U, hourly compounding, flexible deposit and withdrawal.
Kraken USDG / USD Fiat: 5.25% APY, capped at 10 million U. Direct holding incurs a 1% fee deduction; no deduction for 30-day or 60-day lock-ups, interest paid weekly on Sundays. USDG is a US dollar stablecoin issued by Paxos and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). It is backed by the Global Dollar Network alliance, which distributes reserve investment returns to ecosystem partners to incentivize distribution and usage. It has already obtained EU MiCA compliance approval.
HTX USDE: 5% APY, capped at 100,000 U, hourly compounding, flexible deposit and withdrawal.
Kraken USDT / USDC: 5% APY, capped at 10 million U. Direct holding incurs a 1% fee deduction; 30-day lock-up incurs a 0.25% deduction; 60-day lock-up has no deduction, interest paid weekly on Sundays.
On-Chain Wealth Management
The following products differ in logic from exchange promotions. Funds are deposited directly into respective protocols or platforms, bearing the smart contract risk at the protocol level.
Rewards for some products are not fully settled in stablecoins; the actual yield converted to a USD basis may be lower than the stated APY. Binance Wallet products can be found on the Binance Wallet - Discover - Wealth Management page.
Unitas USDu: 13.82% APY, settled in USDu, daily compounding, maximum 7-day redemption wait, no end time specified. USDu is a decentralized yield-bearing stablecoin issued by Unitas Labs, built on Solana, employing a delta-neutral strategy to generate yield from the Jupiter Perps ecosystem.
Concrete USDT: 11.49% APY, consisting of 7.99% in USDT and the remainder in protocol tokens. Stablecoin portion compounds daily, tokens claimable at TGE. Maximum 7-day redemption wait, ends on April 2 at 8:00.
ZEROBASE USDT: 9% APY, settled in USDT, daily compounding, maximum 7-day redemption wait, no end time specified.
USDD: 7.92% APY, settled in a mix of USDT (5%) and USDD, with interest reflected in the appreciation of sUSDD, instant redemption, ends on April 10 at 8:00.
Grvt USDT: Earn interest simply by holding funds, which can also be used as trading margin. 5%~11% APY, capped at 100,000 U, interest paid weekly on Tuesdays. Unlock 5% by completing 5 trades every 4 weeks; invite 1 valid friend for an extra +6%, distributed weekly on Tuesdays, no end time specified. Grvt is a decentralized derivatives exchange founded in 2022, with total funding of $33 million, planning its TGE in June this year.
Katana USDC: 6.82% APY, deposited in the Morpho protocol, consisting of 1.22% in USDC and the remainder in KAT tokens. Stablecoin portion auto-compounds, tokens become liquid at TGE. Instant redemption, ends on April 16 at 8:00.
Bitway USDT: 12% APY, quantitative strategy, 7-day redemption wait, no end time specified. Bitway primarily offers market-neutral wealth management and quantitative strategies for stablecoins (USDT, USDC, U) through its Bitway Earn product. Founded by former Binance team members and backed by YZi Labs, TRON DAO, HTX Ventures, etc., with total funding exceeding $5 million, it completed its TGE in March this year.
Bitway USDT/USDC: 5% APY, neutral strategy, 7-day redemption wait, no end time specified. Note: USDC can only be accessed via Binance Wallet.
Pendle
Pendle is an interest rate separation protocol that splits an asset's principal and future yield for separate pricing and trading. Buying PT (Principal Token) locks in a fixed yield, redeemable at par value upon maturity; buying YT (Yield Token) captures all yield generated by the underlying asset before maturity, with its value dropping to zero at maturity.
YT is essentially interest rate leverage. The lower the implied yield, the cheaper the YT and the higher the leverage multiple. However, it's important to note that the high APY of many positions on the platform is settled in points or protocol tokens, not stablecoins or major cryptocurrencies. The actual return depends on the final market pricing of these assets.
USDG: Maturity May 28, 2026 (~71 days), current actual APY 7.54%, implied yield 5.3%, YT leverage ~99x, Long Yield APY ~442%.
sNUSD: Maturity June 4, 2026 (~78 days), current actual APY 8.79%, implied yield 7.7%, YT leverage ~63x, Long Yield APY ~53.77%.
Notes:
(1) Only selected yield activities are included, not covering all stablecoin wealth management products in the market;
(2) Data statistics as of the morning of March 17; please refer to each platform's real-time data for the latest figures;
(3) High-APY stablecoin yield products typically carry certain risks; do not equate high APY with risk-free returns. This article is for data compilation only and does not constitute investment advice.
