Stablecoin Yield Landscape
· Updated monthly
As of June 2026, the major yield-bearing stablecoin instruments span from Aave V3 USDC (3.14%) at the low end to syrupUSDC (Maple) (4.75%) at the high end, a 1.61pp spread across instruments that all nominally represent "one US dollar." For reference, the FDIC national bank savings rate is 0.38% and the 3-month US T-bill pays 3.60%. The top-paying stablecoin pays roughly 12× the average bank savings rate. The spread between instruments is not arbitrage, each yield source has a different risk profile. This page colour-codes each instrument by its yield source: tokenized US Treasuries, on-chain DSR, institutional lending, basis trades, and DeFi lending. Data: DefiLlama Pools API (daily, downsampled to monthly median), FDIC National Rates, FRED TB3MS.
A US dollar held in a bank earns 0.38%. A US dollar held in a tokenized T-bill (USDY, BUIDL) earns the T-bill rate 3.60% directly, passed through to the holder rather than captured by an issuer. A US dollar held in an on-chain savings wrapper (sUSDS) earns the Maker/Sky DSR. A US dollar held in an institutional lending wrapper (syrupUSDC) earns the borrower-funded lending rate. A US dollar held in a basis-trade wrapper (sUSDe) earns whatever the funding rate happens to be that month, potentially much more, potentially nothing. The headline yield comparison is real, but the risk-adjusted comparison requires reading the right-hand column on the table below.
| Instrument | Yield Source | Current APY | vs 3M T-bill |
|---|---|---|---|
| USDY (Ondo) Backed by short-dated US Treasuries via Ondo Finance. Counterparty: Ondo + Ankura Trust. |
Tokenized T-bills | 3.55% | -0.05pp |
| BUIDL (BlackRock) Backed by US Treasury bills via Hashnote. Counterparty: BlackRock + Securitize. |
Tokenized T-bills | 3.54% | -0.06pp |
| sUSDS (Sky) Yield from the Dai Savings Rate, set by Sky/Maker governance. Counterparty: the Sky protocol. |
On-chain DSR | 3.60% | +0.00pp |
| syrupUSDC (Maple) Yield from over-collateralised loans to vetted institutional borrowers. Counterparty: Maple + borrower default risk. |
Institutional lending | 4.75% | +1.15pp |
| sUSDe (Ethena) Yield from a delta-neutral funding-rate basis trade on perp DEXes plus ETH staking. Counterparty: Ethena + perp exchange counterparties + LST staking risk. |
Basis trade | 3.63% | +0.03pp |
| Aave V3 USDC Supply APY on Aave V3 USDC pool. Counterparty: Aave protocol + USDC borrower demand. |
DeFi lending | 3.14% | -0.46pp |
Per-Instrument Yield, Monthly Median
Each line is a separate yield-bearing stablecoin product, monthly median APY from DefiLlama. Bank Savings (light green fill) and 3-Month T-Bill (orange dashed) are the reference benchmarks. Lines are colour-coded by yield source so risk classification is visible at a glance. Click any legend item to toggle a series. Series start dates differ, older products like Aave have years of history, newer products like BUIDL and sUSDS launched only in 2024.
What this page does not show
The chart shows nominal yield. It does not show risk-adjusted yield. The headline number hides differences that matter:
- FDIC insurance asymmetry. Bank deposits up to $250,000 are insured against bank failure. None of the instruments here are. A 4% yield on a tokenized T-bill is not directly comparable to a 0.4% yield on a savings account, different risk surfaces.
- Counterparty risk varies sharply. Tokenized T-bills (USDY, BUIDL) carry counterparty risk on the issuer + custodian, not the underlying T-bill. sUSDe carries Ethena protocol risk + perp-exchange counterparty risk + LST staking risk simultaneously. syrupUSDC carries Maple borrower-default risk.
- Yield durability differs. Tokenized T-bills will pay whatever the T-bill rate is, durable, predictable. sUSDe yield depends on perp funding rates, when crypto markets turn bearish and funding goes negative, the yield can collapse from 15% to nothing within weeks.
- Liquidity and redemption mechanics differ. Bank deposits are withdrawable on demand. Tokenized T-bills typically settle T+0 on-chain but may have minimum-hold periods. Basis-trade wrappers like sUSDe have a 7-day unstaking cooldown.
- Tax treatment varies by jurisdiction. Bank interest is straightforward income. Yield-bearing stablecoin gains can trigger different (often more complex) tax reporting, especially for non-US holders. The net-of-tax yield can be lower than the nominal yield suggests.
The colour-coded yield source on the chart is a starting screen for risk classification, not a risk score. A serious allocator reads the issuer's reserves disclosure, the audit history, and the redemption terms before comparing yields one-to-one with a bank deposit.
The instruments here all have yield, but the yield comes from five structurally different sources. Group the chart by colour and the story becomes clear: the orange lines track the T-bill rate (because that is their yield source); the green line tracks the DSR (because the Sky protocol sets it); the blue line tracks Aave borrow demand; the purple line tracks the Maple borrower book; the red line tracks the perp basis. Each cluster moves for different reasons, so understanding which one you're holding is more important than picking the headline-highest number.
Backed 1:1 by US Treasury bills. Yield tracks the T-bill rate directly, when the Fed cuts, the yield drops within weeks. The risk surface is issuer/custodian only: BlackRock + Securitize for BUIDL, Ondo + Ankura Trust for USDY. Closest substitute for a bank savings account on a pure-risk basis, but uninsured.
Best for: Treasury teams who want T-bill yield without the operational overhead of buying T-bills directly, and who can underwrite the issuer.
Yield is set by Sky/Maker governance via the Dai Savings Rate. Backed by a mix of T-bills, RWA collateral, and crypto-backed Dai loans. Yield changes when governance votes change the rate, typically lagging the Fed by a few weeks. Smart-contract risk is the dominant exposure; the protocol has a 6+ year track record.
Best for: DeFi-native users who want a permissionless savings rate without leaving the Ethereum ecosystem and without basis-trade complexity.
Maple Finance lends to vetted institutional borrowers, market makers, prop trading firms, lending desks. Yield tracks corporate-credit demand: higher than T-bills because borrowers pay a credit spread for the unsecured access. The default risk is real but distributed across many borrowers and disclosed quarterly.
Best for: Allocators who can underwrite a corporate-credit portfolio and want a yield premium over Treasuries.
The highest-yielding instrument in the category, but also the most cyclical. Yield depends on perpetual futures funding rates, positive when crypto markets are bullish (leveraged longs pay shorts), negative when bearish. sUSDe historically pays 10%+ in bull markets and near-zero in bear markets. Stacks ETH-staking yield on top of the basis.
Best for: Sophisticated allocators who understand perp basis dynamics and can size the position so a funding-rate flip is survivable.
Variable APY set by Aave V3 pool utilisation: the more capital borrowers want, the higher the rate. The benchmark institutional DeFi yield. Carries pure smart-contract risk plus liquidation cascade risk.
Best for: A reference benchmark; rarely the highest yield but the deepest and most liquid pool in DeFi.
Bank savings is the floor, every instrument here pays multiples of 0.38%. The T-bill is the risk-free anchor at 3.60% that most of the lower-risk instruments mechanically track. Each colour cluster on the chart pays a premium over T-bills that compensates for the additional risk surface of that yield source, the spread between USDY and sUSDe is roughly the risk premium for trading perp basis vs holding T-bills.
For everyone: Pick the cluster colour before picking the instrument. The yield difference within a cluster is small; the difference between clusters is structural.
Data source: All yield-bearing instruments are pulled from DefiLlama Pools API by pool ID. We use the apyBase field for each pool (excludes incentive-token rewards). Daily observations are downsampled to calendar-month median to suppress single-day liquidity spikes that do not reflect what a holder would have earned over a full month.
Pool selection: Each instrument is the canonical Ethereum mainnet pool with the deepest TVL (verified June 2026):
- USDY. Ondo Yield Assets, Ethereum, $1.1B TVL
- BUIDL. BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, Ethereum, $830M TVL
- sUSDS, Sky/Maker savings token, Ethereum, $5.9B TVL
- syrupUSDC. Maple Finance cash management USDC pool, Ethereum, $3.1B TVL
- sUSDe. Ethena staked USDe, Ethereum, $1.7B TVL
- Aave V3 USDC. Aave V3 USDC supply pool, Ethereum (reference benchmark)
FDIC bank savings (reference): Monthly national-average savings rate from the FDIC archive. Sourced from fdic.gov/resources/bankers/national-rates.
3-month T-bill (reference): FRED TB3MS series, monthly. The risk-free benchmark every yield-bearing instrument is implicitly priced against.
Why monthly median, not daily? Some yield-bearing wrappers (notably sUSDe) have very volatile APY day to day because funding rates swing. The daily values are real but a single high-funding day does not represent what a holder would actually earn over time. The monthly median is the most honest single-number summary of "what would I have earned by holding this for a month."
Colour coding: Lines are coloured by yield source category, not by issuer. This is deliberate: BUIDL and USDY share the same yield source (T-bills) so they share a colour. The user should immediately see which cluster a given instrument belongs to.
What this page does not measure: Slippage, gas costs, redemption delays, depeg risk, smart-contract risk, oracle risk, regulatory risk. Each of these is real and varies sharply by instrument. The chart shows nominal yield only.
Update cadence: Daily fetch via DefiLlama; monthly aggregation in the pipeline. New monthly values appear on the chart on the 1st of each month after the FDIC's bank-savings reference has updated.