What does a dollar actually earn after inflation, and does stablecoin supply move with it?
The 10-year real interest rate is the inflation-adjusted return on US government debt, and this page plots it against stablecoin supply on one time axis. It stands at +2.59% as of Sep 2026 — a nominal yield of 4.95% less 2.36% of expected inflation — against total supply of $303.1B.
The real rate is held as the constant macro signal on this page; the stablecoin indicator it is compared against is selectable from six choices. Real rates are one opportunity-cost channel for stablecoin markets: when they rise, Treasuries reward capital in real terms; when they fall or turn negative, on-chain dollar yield closes the carry. During the 2022 to 2023 hike cycle the real rate moved from −0.7% to +2.0% and stablecoin supply contracted from $180B to $125B over the same window; the series went on to peak at +2.5% in October 2023, during the pause that followed. The IMF[1] documents this opportunity-cost channel among other macrofinancial drivers; the chart should be read as co-movement, not proof of a single causal mechanism.
The four periods below describe how stablecoin supply moved through each Fed policy regime; supply and its 30-day change are the two comparisons that reach back far enough to show them. Switching to velocity, dominance or issuer concentration narrows the chart to Apr 2025 onward, and these descriptions no longer match what is drawn.
With nominal yields near zero and inflation expectations rising, the real rate turned negative, bottoming near −1.2%. Treasuries yielded nothing after inflation, and DeFi protocols offering 5–12% APY were substantially more attractive on a relative basis. Total stablecoin supply grew from about $6B to about $180B over the period.
As the Fed raised rates from 0% to 5.25%, the real rate moved from −0.7% to +2.0%. T-bill yields exceeded the headline DeFi yield. Total stablecoin supply contracted from about $180B to about $125B over the same window. The contraction and the rise in real rates are observed together; that is not by itself proof that rates caused it.
The real rate held between +1.5% and +2.5%, peaking at +2.5% in October 2023. Supply stopped contracting and recovered from its ~$125B trough to about $170B, consistent with allocation responding to rate expectations as much as to current levels.
The Fed began cutting its policy rate in September 2024, but the 10-year real rate has risen since, from +1.58% to +2.59%: nominal yields moved up while breakeven inflation stayed broadly flat. Stablecoin supply expanded over the same period, so this is the regime in which supply growth and a rising real rate occur together. A policy rate and a ten-year real rate are different instruments and need not move together.
The rate. 10-year real rate = DGS10, the nominal 10-year Treasury yield, minus T10YIE, the 10-year breakeven inflation rate. Both are published each business day by the US Federal Reserve in percent per annum. Breakeven is derived from the spread between nominal Treasuries and inflation-linked TIPS, so it is the market’s implied forecast rather than a survey or a model estimate.
Non-publication days. Neither series publishes on weekends or US federal holidays. The last observation is carried forward to produce a continuous daily series; gaps are not interpolated.
Regime bands. Set to actual FOMC meeting dates, not interpolated or estimated. The current regime stays open-ended until the next policy change.
The level labels. The reading beside the rate is placed by boundaries at +1.5%, 0.0% and -0.5%. Those boundaries are Stablecoin Beat’s own: no external standard divides real-rate levels this way. A label states where the current reading falls in a range we have divided, not whether the level is desirable.
Comparison series and their spans. Each comparison is computed over its own full history before any window is applied.
Which compilation each figure comes from. Supply and its 30-day change are drawn on the chart from a daily supply series compiled on the same universe definition as the platform’s headline figure, so it can differ from the headline total by a fraction of a percent — two compilations of the same base concept, reconciled daily. Every current-day figure shown as text on this page is the headline figure, not the chart series’ last value.
What this page does not prove. Co-movement between the real rate and any comparison series is not causation. Stablecoin indicators respond to many things besides real rates, among them regulation, offshore demand, on-chain yield and dollarization in emerging markets. Use the page to test the real-rate-transmission hypothesis under each lens, not to attribute single causes.
Updated daily. Both series are published with a one-business-day lag. See the methodology for data sources and coverage.
The real interest rate is the nominal 10-year Treasury yield (DGS10) minus the 10-year breakeven inflation rate (T10YIE). It measures how much an investor earns in T-bills after accounting for expected inflation. A positive real rate means T-bills genuinely preserve purchasing power; a negative real rate means inflation is eroding the return.
The real rate is one important opportunity-cost channel for stablecoin markets. During the 2020–2022 zero-rate era, real rates turned deeply negative (bottoming near −1.2%), and the gap between near-zero T-bills and DeFi yields of 5–12% was very wide. As real rates rose from −0.7% to +2.0% during the 2022–23 hike cycle, stablecoin supply contracted from ~$180B to ~$125B over the same window; the series went on to peak at +2.5% in October 2023, during the pause that followed.
The IMF’s Understanding Stablecoins discusses this opportunity-cost channel alongside other macrofinancial drivers; the relationship should be read as co-movement rather than proof of a single causal mechanism.
Supply and its 30-day change are compiled from a daily series beginning Nov 2017, so they cover every policy regime this page describes. Velocity, USDT and USDC dominance and the Issuer Theil Index begin Apr 2025, because each needs per-coin volume, per-coin share or an issuer mapping that the deep supply compilation does not carry.
Selecting one of those four narrows the chart to the current policy period. The regime descriptions further down are written about supply for that reason.
The 10-year breakeven inflation rate (T10YIE) is derived from the spread between nominal and inflation-linked Treasury yields (TIPS). It represents the market’s implied forecast for average annual inflation over the next decade. When breakeven rises faster than nominal yields, real rates fall.
The rates page tracks SOFR, the overnight benchmark reflecting near-term Fed policy. This page tracks the 10-year real rate, which reflects the long-term inflation-adjusted return on Treasuries. The two can move in opposite directions: the Fed began cutting its policy rate in September 2024 while the 10-year real rate rose over the same period.
As of Sep 2026, the 10-year real rate stands at +2.59% (nominal DGS10 4.95% minus breakeven inflation 2.36%). A positive real rate means T-bill yields exceed expected inflation, raising the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding dollar instruments; the live comparison against on-chain yields is on the DeFi spread page.
They are Stablecoin Beat’s own boundaries, set at +1.5%, 0.0% and -0.5%. No external standard divides real-rate levels this way. A label states where the current reading falls in a range we have divided; it does not say whether the level is desirable.