Does a dollar earn more on-chain than it does in a Treasury bill?
The DeFi yield spread measures what on-chain dollar lending pays against risk-free government paper. As of Sep 2026 it stands at +0.23pp, with Aave V3 USDC at 3.95% and the 3-month T-bill at 3.72%, against total stablecoin supply of $303.1B.
The spread is what on-chain dollar lending pays over risk-free government paper: Aave V3 USDC at 3.95% less the 3-month T-bill at 3.72%, currently +0.23pp — Mild DeFi premium. When DeFi yields exceed T-bills, on-chain deployment carries a yield premium over the risk-free alternative; when T-bills dominate, the carry inverts. Both yield series begin Nov 2022, so nothing on this page describes the yield environment before that date.
Each figure below is read from the series over the window its heading names, and no window opens before Nov 2022, where the yield data starts.
As the Fed raised rates, T-bill yields rose from 4.15% to 5.32% across the covered period. DeFi yields, driven by on-chain borrowing demand, did not keep pace as crypto market activity declined: the spread was negative on 88% of the 324 days in this window. Stablecoin supply contracted from about $180B to about $125B as off-chain yield won.
T-bill rates ranged 4.72% to 5.34% while DeFi yields gradually recovered as crypto activity picked up ahead of the 2024 bull market. The spread closed positive on 75% of the 365 days in this window, against 88% negative in the one before it.
Fed rate cuts reduce T-bill yields — one side of the spread — while on-chain rates follow crypto borrow demand. The T-bill rate has fallen from 4.72% to 3.72% since the cycle opened. The reading above shows where the comparison stands today.
The on-chain rate. The daily base supply APY for USDC on Aave V3 — the interest borrowers pay lenders, excluding protocol-token reward incentives. Reward APY is tracked in the data but not used here: token emissions can signal mercenary capital rather than an organic economic rate.
The risk-free rate. TB3MS, the secondary-market yield on 3-month US Treasury bills, published monthly by the US Federal Reserve and carried forward across the days between releases. Short-term moves within a month are therefore not captured.
The spread. The APY less the T-bill rate, computed daily. Positive means on-chain lending pays more than risk-free government paper; negative means it does not.
Smoothing. The Aave APY spikes during liquidity events, when sudden borrow demand pushes utilization past 90% and the rate with it — the raw series reaches 56.68%, and the spread +51.43pp, on Jul 2023. Raw daily values make the chart unreadable and overstate the signal, so a 7-day trailing average is applied by default to the APY and the derived spread: long enough to remove a single event, short enough to follow a real shift. The T-bill rate is not smoothed further.
Spans. Both yield series begin Nov 2022. The stablecoin supply series begins Nov 2017, so the earliest part of the chart shows supply with no yield lines beside it, and no statement on this page describes the yield environment before Nov 2022.
The level labels. The reading beside the spread is placed by boundaries at +2.0pp, 0.0pp and -1.0pp. Those boundaries are Stablecoin Beat’s own: no external standard divides this spread. A label states where the current reading falls in a range we have divided, not which venue anyone should prefer.
Regime bands. Set to actual FOMC meeting dates, not interpolated or estimated.
What the spread does not price. Base APY excludes incentive tokens, leveraged supply positions and LP fee strategies, which can add one to three percentage points to a headline DeFi yield. It also excludes smart-contract risk, which is real and unpriced here, and the difference in liquidity profile: T-bills settle on a fixed schedule while DeFi withdrawals depend on pool utilization. A positive spread is a necessary condition for on-chain deployment, not a sufficient one.
Updated daily. See the methodology for data sources and coverage.
The DeFi yield spread is the difference between the annualized percentage yield (APY) on Aave V3 USDC lending and the US 3-month T-bill rate (TB3MS). A positive spread means DeFi offers more yield than risk-free government paper; a negative spread means T-bills are more attractive.
When DeFi yields exceed T-bill rates, capital has an incentive to deploy stablecoins into DeFi protocols rather than holding cash equivalents. When T-bills yield more, as in 2022–2023 when rates reached 5.25%, the opportunity cost of holding stablecoins in DeFi increases; that inversion coincided with the supply contraction shown on this page.
Aave V3 is the largest and most liquid decentralized lending protocol. The USDC supply APY is the most widely used benchmark for risk-adjusted DeFi dollar yield: it has deep liquidity, transparent on-chain rates, and daily data availability. It represents the safer end of the DeFi yield spectrum.
The Federal Reserve raised rates from 0% to 5.25% in 16 months. T-bill yields followed directly, reaching above 5% by mid-2023. DeFi yields, which depend on borrowing demand, did not keep pace as crypto market activity declined. The result was a sustained period where T-bills outperformed DeFi, contributing to the stablecoin supply contraction from ~$180B to ~$125B.
The Aave APY, the T-bill rate and the spread derived from them all begin Nov 2022. The stablecoin supply series begins Nov 2017, so the earliest years of the chart show supply with no yield lines beside it, and no statement on this page describes the yield environment before Nov 2022.
As of Sep 2026, Aave V3 USDC lends at 3.95% against 3.72% on the 3-month T-bill. A reader deciding between them should treat the spread as a starting screen rather than an allocation signal: it prices neither smart-contract risk nor the difference in liquidity profile between the two.