They all represent one dollar. They do not all pay the same, and the difference is where the yield comes from.
Yield-bearing stablecoins all represent a dollar but pay differently depending on where the yield comes from. As of September 2026 they span 3.56% on USDY (Ondo) to 5.03% on syrupUSDC (Maple), a spread of 1.47pp, against an FDIC national average savings rate of 0.38%.
6 yield-bearing stablecoin instruments span 3.56% on USDY (Ondo) to 5.03% on syrupUSDC (Maple) — a spread of 1.47pp across tokens that all nominally represent one US dollar. For reference the FDIC national average savings rate is 0.38% and the 3-month US Treasury bill pays 3.72%; the top-paying instrument pays about 13× the bank average. The spread is not an arbitrage. Each instrument earns its yield somewhere different, and this page groups them by that source rather than by issuer, because the source is the risk.
Current level, distance from the risk-free rate, and each instrument’s own coverage. The span column is not decoration: BUIDL (BlackRock) has months of history against 44 for the longest series here.
| Instrument | Yield source | Current APY | vs 3M T-bill | Peak | Data from |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDY (Ondo) |
Tokenized T-bills | 3.56% | -0.16pp | 3.70% | January 2026 |
| BUIDL (BlackRock) |
Tokenized T-bills | 3.59% | -0.13pp | 3.59% | March 2026 |
| sUSDS (Sky) |
On-chain savings rate | 3.60% | -0.12pp | 6.50% | February 2025 |
| syrupUSDC (Maple) |
Institutional lending | 5.03% | +1.31pp | 6.97% | July 2025 |
| sUSDe (Ethena) |
Basis trade | 4.61% | +0.89pp | 35.18% | February 2024 |
| Aave V3 USDC |
DeFi lending | 3.57% | -0.15pp | 10.30% | February 2023 |
5 sources across 6 instruments. Two instruments sharing a source share a risk surface, which is why the grouping is by source and not by issuer.
Backed one-for-one by short-dated US Treasury bills. The yield is the Treasury yield less the wrapper’s fees, which is why these sit slightly below the T-bill line rather than above it. The risk surface is the issuer and custodian, not the market.
A rate set by protocol governance rather than by a market, backed by a mix of Treasuries, real-world collateral and crypto-backed loans. It changes when a vote changes it, so it steps rather than drifts.
Lending to vetted institutional borrowers. The yield is a credit spread over the risk-free rate, and the risk is borrower default alongside the platform itself.
A delta-neutral position in perpetual futures plus staking yield. The return comes from funding rates, which follow leverage demand rather than policy rates, so it is the most cyclical source here: 10% or more in 10 of the 32 months covered, peaking at 35.18%.
A variable rate set by lending-pool utilization: the more capital borrowers want, the higher it goes. Pure smart-contract and liquidation risk, no counterparty promise.
The bank average is the floor: every instrument here pays more than 0.38%. The 3-month T-bill at 3.72% is the anchor the lower-risk instruments are priced against, and the distance from it — the column in the table above — is what each yield source is being paid for. Read the source before the number.
The yields. Base APY for each instrument, excluding incentive-token rewards, taken from the canonical Ethereum mainnet pool for each and downsampled from daily observations to the calendar-month median. The median rather than the mean because a funding-rate-driven instrument can move by tens of percentage points inside a month, and a mean carries that spike into the monthly figure.
Grouping. By source of yield, not by issuer. Two instruments backed by the same assets carry the same risk whoever wraps them, and a reader choosing between them is choosing a risk surface.
Spans. Coverage is uneven — BUIDL (BlackRock) has months against 44 for the longest. Every instrument carries its own start in the table and the legend. No statement on this page describes an instrument over a period it does not cover.
The two panels. The main axis stops at 11%, which is the highest level at which every instrument but one remains unclipped. Drawing all of them on a single axis set by sUSDe (Ethena)’s peak of 35.18% would compress the rest into a band a few pixels tall — the spread this page exists to show is 1.47pp. The clipped instrument is drawn again below at its own scale, and it leaves the main frame on 9 of its months. The cap is derived from the data each build, not fixed.
References. The FDIC national average savings rate and the 3-month Treasury bill rate, both monthly. The savings rate is the insured comparison and the T-bill the risk-free one; neither is an instrument on this page.
Percentage points. Distances between rates are labelled pp. A rate itself is labelled %.
What is not measured. Slippage, gas, redemption delay, peg risk, smart-contract risk, oracle risk and regulatory risk. Each is real, each varies sharply by instrument, and none of it is in an APY. Nothing here is advice, and a higher yield is not a better instrument.
Updated monthly. See the methodology for data sources and coverage.
A token that represents a dollar and pays a return on it, rather than sitting inert. The dollar is the same in each case; what differs is where the return comes from — Treasury bills, a protocol-set savings rate, lending to institutions, a futures basis trade, or an on-chain lending pool. That source is the risk, and it is what this page groups by.
As of September 2026, syrupUSDC (Maple) at 5.03%, against USDY (Ondo) at 3.56% at the other end — a spread of 1.47pp across instruments that all nominally represent one US dollar. The spread is not an arbitrage: the higher number is compensation for a different risk surface, not a better version of the same one.
The FDIC national average savings rate is 0.38% and the 3-month Treasury bill pays 3.72%. Every instrument here pays more than the bank average. None of them is insured, which is the difference the yield is paying for.
Its yield comes from perpetual-futures funding rates, which move with leverage demand rather than with policy rates. Over the 32 months it covers it has paid 10% or more in 10 of them and peaked at 35.18%, which is why it is drawn on its own scale below rather than flattening every other line on a shared axis.
No. FDIC insurance covers deposits at insured banks up to $250,000 against the failure of the bank. None of these instruments is a bank deposit, and none carries that protection. A tokenized Treasury fund holds Treasuries, which is a different kind of safety from insurance and not a substitute for it.
They differ sharply. The table above gives each instrument’s own start and month count, and the chart legend repeats it; the thinnest is BUIDL (BlackRock) at 7 months. Comparing two instruments over a period only one of them covers is the mistake this page is arranged to prevent.
Slippage, gas, redemption delay, peg risk, smart-contract risk, oracle risk and regulatory risk. Each is real, each varies sharply by instrument, and none is in the APY. A yield is a starting point for comparison, not a ranking.