Fed Rate at 4%: Crypto Dollar Yield Must Beat US Treasury First

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The Fed met on October 28, six weeks after raising its range to 3.75-4.00%. Journal du Coin covers the day-to-day effect of its decision on the price of bitcoin. This article looks at the other side: what the key rate changes for a crypto investment that aims for income in dollars. You will first see why the Treasury bill is the right reference, then what funding and cash-and-carry bring in today compared to it. We will then see how each Fed scenario shifts the calculation, and what a euro investor should add to it.

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To judge an investment, we look at what it brings in more than a solution that requires no effort and involves almost no risk. In dollars, this solution has a name: the short-term US Treasury bond, the T-bill. Its rate closely follows the range set by the Fed. Indeed, banks and money market funds constantly arbitrate between the two.

Our article on cash-and-carry already stated the principle in one sentence: the reference for this return is the risk-free rate, and not zero. This phrase gains weight when the Fed tightens. In January 2026, the three-month bond yielded 3.6%. After the increase on September 16, it exceeded 4%. It then traded at 4.15% on October 26 according to daily U.S. Treasury readings. Each hike by the Fed raises the bar that any dollar strategy, including crypto, must pass.

What a strategy earns above this rate is called the risk premium. It is she who pays the counterparty risk on the platforms, the risk of the stablecoin which serves as collateral, the operational risk and the management fees. If it is zero, the investor takes all these risks for free.

Let's take a look at the statements from our article on funding, from October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026: 3.37% of the notional amount paid to the seller of the BTCUSDT perpetual at Binance. Over these same twelve months, the three-month Treasury bill returned an average of 3.77%. Let's take the simplest neutral strategy, which involves buying bitcoin spot and selling perpetual. It therefore did less well than the risk-free investment, even before counting the margin and fees.

There is a reason for this. On the platforms, the funding of a perpetual is not indexed to monetary policy. Binance starts from a fixed reference rate, the equivalent of 0.03% per day. The platform only deviates from it when the price of perpetual moves significantly away from cash. This benchmark rate does not move when the Fed rises. All year, BTCUSDT funding has remained at or below this level. There were indeed too few leveraged buyers to push it higher.

The last thirty days have changed the picture a little. Annualized, payments for the past month come to 4.1%, roughly at the Treasury level. The premium went from negative to zero, which is still not enough to remunerate the risk.

Machine-translated from French