Hey folks, so if you’ve been following me for awhile, you’ll know that I usually spend a lot of time trying to find the best stablecoin rates out there. Over the last several months however, it’s been noticeable that there have been some pretty significant stablecoin outflows back into fiat, and I don’t think it’s because anything has fundamentally changed with crypto market:
In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite — something has fundamentally changed with TradFi. Many TradFi banks are offering relatively high APRs on checking/savings accounts, but on top of that, they’re offering some pretty significant bonuses as long as you meet their terms and conditions.
For this article, I’m going to breakdown some of these TradFi yields and by the end, you may be like me and consider exiting some of your stablecoin positions as well.
But first, a disclaimer: I haven’t read the fine print on all of these, but I believe they may be reserved for U.S. Residents and/or U.S. citizens, so if you’re not either of those you might be out of luck. Additionally, each offer does come with its own unique terms and conditions in order to qualify for the bonus, so please DYOR and make sure you do whatever may be necessary in order to fulfill them.
Let’s check out some of what TradFi offers shall we?
US Bank — 45.01% APR
Until January 8th, 2024, a deposit of $5000 dollars will earn you a $350 dollar bonus with , which equates to about 45.01% APR over the course of 60 days. (You could do the second option for $800 dollars on a $25,000 deposit but this would come out to 19.82% APR, which still isn’t too shabby).
Pros/Cons — This is for opening a business account which might be a hurdle, but on this list it offers the best returns. Additionally I’ve read a lot of complaints about bonuses not posting so once again please be sure to read the closely
Citi Bank— 16.32% APR
Another business account, available until January 9th, 2024, Citi Bank allows new customers in-branch to earn $200 off of a $5000 dollar deposit after a 90 day period. This obviously isn’t as good as the US Bank offer, but if you look at the scale above, this offers allows you still to scale up pretty significantly while still earning double digit APR’s — 13.56% APY off of a $15,000 dollar deposit and 11.36% off of a $25,000 dollar deposit.
Pros/Cons — this offer is only available in-branch, yet scales pretty high.
Bank of America — 20.67% APR
Speaking of scaling up, until December 31st, 2023, Bank of America is offering a $1000 bonus after maintaining a $30,000 dollar balance after a 60-day period which comes out to 20.67% APR. This may actually come out closer to 13% APR depending on when you actually made your deposit during the first 30 day period, but still a pretty solid return nonetheless.
Pros/Cons — this offers a really solid return, but has a pretty high threshold of 30k.
Chase — 8.11% up to 24.72% APR
Last but not least we have this offer for new Chase customers which expires on November 16th, 2023. The basic offer to earn $200 dollars off of a $15,000 deposit earns only approximately 8.11% APR, but combined with opening a checking account (which needs a direct deposit setup) will earn you a net 24.72% APR over a 90-day period.
Pros/Cons — This offer is really only going to be worth it if you open a checking account the direct deposit along with your savings account, otherwise you may as well go ahead and find a better option than 8.11% APR.
Trade-Offs and Other Considerations
Gaming bank sign-up bonuses can be extremely lucrative, but before aping into whatever offer, there’s a few things to consider including…
The list I provided is by no means comprehensive — There are so many different bonuses out there that require very little capital up front. With the exception of Chase Bank, all the offers do not require a direct deposit, but there are literally dozens of offers out there that do.
— Most likely whatever bank bonus you receive, depending on your jurisdiction it should be considered taxable income and the bank will most likely issue a 1099. That being said, if you’re doing your taxes correctly with Crypto as well, you’ll be taxed on your gains there too.
Fiat Insurance — Whether you think USD is going to completely collapse tomorrow or not, your funds are federally insured FDIC up to $250,000. With crypto, you can have control of your own keys — yet of course this freedom comes without insurance.
Once again, read the Terms & Conditions — If they tell you that you need to have an average of $15,000 dollars in your account across 60 days, then make sure you have an average of $15,000 dollars in your account across 60 days. If you miss the cutoff by just a hair, best of luck to you trying to convince a customer service rep to give you your bonus.
I’m not a macro-economist so this is all pure speculation, but as long as these rates at TradFi banks are giving these good of returns, personally I don’t see a convincing argument for why I should put significant sums on stablecoins on DeFi protocols or centralized exchanges for which there are very little repercussions (if any) when/if they get hacked, exploited and/or rugged.
Have you already been gaming bank bonuses yourself? If so, let me know if there’s any good offers that I missed. Are you sticking it out in the stablecoin market instead? Let me know if you’ve found something that seems to be worth the risk to forgo 10–40% APR bank bonuses and I’m all ears.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read this and be sure to follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/CryptosWith) to get all my latest updates. If you want to get access to all my draft links or get an idea about what’s next on my docket before I publish, find me on Friend.tech, where I share all that information in my chatroom. Also, looking for a gift for your Crypto-loving/hating friend? Give them a REKT journal to cheer them up!
