The weekly-yields cadence skipped three Mondays (April 28, May 5 was missed entirely; this is the catch-up). Rather than fabricate a week-over-week comparison from unreliable backfill data, this restart issue takes a different shape: a snapshot of currently-published rates across 14 platforms, with the structural framing for why headline rates and effective rates diverge so much in 2026's market. Next Monday (May 11) resumes normal week-over-week delta reporting.
Top published rates — banks vertical
Sorted by published max APY. These are the headlines you see on the platform's marketing page. Effective rates after typical conditions (loyalty tier, native-token holdings, fixed-term commitments) are typically 200-400 basis points lower.
- Nexo — 16% USDC max (Platinum tier; requires $100k+ NEXO lock)
- Crypto.com — 14.5% (Earn programme; requires CRO staking for top tiers)
- Revolut — 12.3% (staking on ETH/SOL — not a stablecoin yield)
- Binance — 10.5% (Earn flexible and locked products)
- Kraken Bank — 10.0% (DeFi vaults via Krak Bank)
- Sygnum Bank — 8-10% (institutional structured products)
- Ledn — 9.0% USDC (Growth product; tier-2 bonus reduced from 0.5% to 0.25% in April)
- Wirex — 8% (WXT staking + DeFi accounts)
- Anchorage Digital — ~8% (institutional stake + earn; negotiated)
- Mercado Bitcoin — 8% on stablecoins (BR retail)
Top published rates — exchanges vertical
- Kraken — 17% (top-of-market for staking on certain PoS assets; not stablecoin)
- Binance — 15% (Simple Earn; varies by asset and tier)
- KuCoin — 15% (KuCoin Earn)
- OKX — 12% (Simple Earn)
- Bybit — 10% (Bybit Earn)
- Bitvavo — 8% (stablecoin staking; MiCA-licensed since June 2025)
- Bitstamp — 7% (stablecoin earn; tri-licensed NYDFS+MiCA+FCA)
- Gemini — 6.5% (SOL staking; ETH 3.4%)
- Coinbase — 6% (ETH/SOL/ADA staking)
A 16% headline at Nexo Platinum is the same product family as a 6% headline at Coinbase. The arithmetic difference is the loyalty-tier gating, the lockup structure, and how much of the spread the platform captures vs. passes to the depositor.
Why headlines mislead
Three structural factors explain why a 16% Nexo headline and a 6% Coinbase headline are not comparable.
One — loyalty-tier gating. The Nexo 16% requires Platinum tier, which requires a $100k+ NEXO token lock. The Crypto.com 14.5% similarly requires CRO native-token staking at high tiers. The unconditional flexible USDC rate at both is closer to 6-9%. For a typical retail balance with no tier-bonus capital, the real-world rate is much closer to the Coinbase number than the Nexo number.
Two — fixed-term lockups vs flexible. Most top-tier rates require fixed-term commitments (30 days, 90 days, 1 year). Flexible rates that allow same-day withdrawal are typically 200-400 bps lower. Some platforms (Ledn B2X) explicitly publish both rates side-by-side; others bury the flexible-rate disclosure deeper.
Three — distinction between yield and staking. Yield (also called "earn") is interest paid on a stablecoin or crypto deposit, generated by the platform lending out the asset. Staking is protocol-paid yield from validating a proof-of-stake network — a fundamentally different risk profile. The Kraken 17% figure at the top of our exchanges table is staking on a high-yield PoS asset; it is not comparable to USDC yield. Always check which one is being offered before depositing.
What's new since the 21 April snapshot
Two structural changes worth noting beyond the rate data.
Bitvavo gained MiCA CASP authorisation in June 2025 via AFM (Netherlands) — making it one of a small group of EU exchanges with a clean MiCA paper trail. Yield rates on stablecoins at MiCA-licensed exchanges like Bitvavo are typically lower than offshore peers, reflecting tighter reserve requirements. The structural trade-off is real: lower yield, materially better customer-asset segregation under MiCA Title V.
Anchorage Digital and other institutional platforms were added to our coverage during the Phase 2 vendor expansion. The yield rates are negotiated rather than published — institutions typically agree to specific yield arrangements based on AUM and custody scope. The published "8%" figure for Anchorage is an indicative range rather than a retail-comparable headline.
Cadence going forward
The weekly-yields piece will resume normal Monday cadence. Next Monday (11 May 2026) will be a proper week-over-week delta against today's snapshot — what changed, what didn't, and what the moves correlate with on the rates side. If a Monday gets missed, expect a transparent restart note rather than fabricated backfill: the /research/ corpus is more useful when honest about its gaps than when papered over.
Live tracking + further reading
- Stablecoin yield tracker — always-current published rates across all tracked platforms
- Best crypto earn accounts — methodology + ranked list
- Research archive — all weekly snapshots + analysis pieces
- Methodology — how we score regulatory safety (20% of composite)
- Previous snapshot — 21 April 2026 (referenced for "fell 140bps" detail)