In today's market, inflation is gnawing away like a termite at savers' purchasing power. Yield on cash and short duration instruments, such as money market funds and Treasury bills, respectively, helps investors maintain value when capital is not deployed into risk assets. Despite the Federal Reserve maintaining the highest policy rates in two decades, the benefits of these higher yields have not been distributed evenly across the broader market. Money markets and T-bills now offer attractive returns, yet many consumers continue to earn meager interest on traditional savings accounts. This article looks at where investors can find yield and the risks and complexities that come with each source. 

Even when yields are competitive, the investor experience is often fragmented because positions are spread across multiple fintech apps. Alternatives in digital assets, private credit, and structured products have become more popular but add further complexity and risk. Understanding where yield can be captured, and the tradeoffs involved, has become essential for navigating an environment where the old rules of income investing no longer apply. The practical challenge is to weigh return, liquidity, counterparty exposure, and operational burden, especially when accounts are spread across different platforms.

The Modern Yield Puzzle

When savers put their money in standard checking or savings accounts, the main beneficiary is the bank, which funds its lending with low-cost deposits. (Hence the old 3-6-3 rule: “Borrow at 3%, lend at 6%, hit the golf course by 3.”) Shifting idle balances to money market funds or Treasury bills allows investors to capture yields that track Fed policy rates while retaining daily liquidity and transparent fees. Yields nowadays can depend less on macroeconomic conditions than on a saver’s willingness to venture even slightly off the beaten path. The practical takeaway is simple. Identify your current cash yield, benchmark it against short Treasury yields, and shift funds to instruments that more closely track policy rates.

A 25-year arc of interest rates

What this means for investors

When policy rates rise, yields on cash instruments like money market funds and short Treasury bills adjust quickly, but bank deposit rates often lag. When policy rates fall, the search for income typically shifts toward credit, duration, and alternative sources of yield. Knowing where a product sits in the rate cycle helps set expectations for return, liquidity and risk.

How Common Yield Instruments Stack Up

Yield instruments at a glance

Investors have two broad venues for earning yield. Offchain options sit inside the traditional financial system. Onchain options sit on public blockchains and pass-through returns from cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols or tokenized assets.

Offchain

• Traditional savings and high-yield savings accounts – Bank deposits that pass-through part of the policy rate. Simple to use and fully integrated with existing cash management systems and strategies, but rates can lag the market.

• Certificates of deposit – Time deposits that lock a fixed rate for a set term. Useful when the investment horizon is known, and when investors want to lock in a fixed rate of return when volatility is high or the economic outlook is uncertain. 

• Money market funds – Funds that hold very short-term Treasuries and other high-quality bonds. They pay the current short-term interest rate and let you take out your cash any day.

• Treasury ETFs – Exchange-traded exposure to T-bills and short-duration Treasuries. Intraday liquidity with some mark-to-market movement.

• Fintech cash solutions – Brokerage or platform accounts that sweep excess cash to Treasuries or MMFs and improve pass-through versus bank deposits.

Onchain

As decentralized finance (DeFI) continues to evolve, one of its most compelling innovations is the creation of onchain yield, which generates income from blockchain-based financial activity without reliance on traditional intermediaries. Initially, DeFi yield was largely driven by straightforward mechanisms such as lending and liquidity provision. However, the ecosystem has since evolved into a rich landscape of complex and highly diverse strategies that span a wide range of risk profiles, economic models, and asset types.

We group the landscape by the source of revenue, the engine that actually pays the yield, rather than by token label or wrapper. Each category explains what generates the cash flow, how that stream typically behaves, and a few concrete examples. The aim is to keep the focus on where the dollars come from and how stable, or volatile, that engine is over time.

At a high-level there are six categories:

• Cash-like stablecoins aim to hold one dollar and usually do not pay holders (e.g. USDT, USDC, FDUSD, USD1).

• Staked stablecoins are wrappers that pass-through income from reserves or simple onchain strategies, steadier when backed by Treasuries and more variable when tied to funding or credit (e.g. sDAI, sUSDS, sUSDf, sUSDe). 

• Protocol security rewards pay for staking and restaking to secure networks, with returns driven by issuance and fees and diluted as more participants join (e.g. Staking, restaking, and liquid restaking).

• Onchain credit is interest from lending to over collateralized borrowers, which tends to rise when leverage demand is strong and ease when liquidity is abundant (e.g. Aave, Compound, Morpho, Euler v2). 

• Basis and funding strategies earn the spread between spot and futures, which moves with market conditions and can compress or flip (e.g. exchange/DeFi basis and funding trades).

• Market microstructure fees come from providing liquidity on automated market makers, depend on trading near your price range, and carry inventory risk (e.g. Uniswap v3, Curve stable pools, Balancer pools).

Return, Risk and Complexity Comparison

We now map both offchain and onchain categories across three dimensions. Risk captures the chance of loss and the severity of extreme downside. Return shows a directional range based on typical conditions, not a promise. Complexity reflects the operational steps and technical lift required to implement. Positions are indicative and can shift with market regimes, and ranges may overlap. Use these charts to compare categories at a glance, not to forecast short term results.

Method and Purpose

The chart above gives a side-by-side view of common yield instruments, both offchain and onchain, using three simple lenses: return potential, risk, and operational complexity. It is designed to orient the reader, not to prescribe allocations. Scores are comparative and meant to support portfolio conversations about where to source yield given a specific horizon, liquidity need, and risk tolerance.

We assigned each instrument three scores on a 1 to 5 scale (1 is low, 5 is high).

• Return Score – Reflects typical yield relative to cash, persistence through cycles, and the presence of yield boosters such as funding spreads or incentive programs.

• Risk Score – Captures exposure to duration, credit or counterparty, liquidity, leverage, and for onchain assets, smart contract, oracle, and peg stability risks.

• Complexity Score – Reflects the work required to set up, monitor, and exit an investment, including custody or KYC, use of multiple apps, reliance on incentives, need for rebalancing, and tax or reporting friction. 

• Note: Scores are based on instrument design and recent market behavior; they are directional and can change as conditions evolve.

Takeaways

• Core cash tools lead on efficiency – High-yield savings, money market funds, CDs, and centralized fiat-collateralized tokens score low on risk and complexity, which makes them strong basic tools for cash management.

• Duration and protocol exposure lift risk – Treasury ETFs add mark-to-market volatility, while staking and credit pass-through products add protocol or counterparty exposure that raises risk and complexity.

• Investors must weigh their returns against complexity – Pendle PT shows a relatively favorable balance of return and risk but requires more management and onchain fluency.

• Incentive-driven strategies are tactical – Restaking, liquid restaking, yield tokens, and AMM liquidity can post high yields at a given point in time, yet they carry higher risk and operational load, so sizing and monitoring matter.

Method and Purpose

The second chart compares common yield instruments on efficiency, first after accounting for risk and then after accounting for both risk and operational complexity. It is a quick way to see which tools deliver the most return per unit of “pain” and which require more monitoring or specialized setup. 

Each instrument has three scores on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 is low, 5 is high): Return, Risk, and Complexity.

• Risk-Adjusted Index – a simple efficiency measure showing Return relative to Risk. Values above 1.0 indicate that expected return more than compensates for risk.

• Risk- and Complexity-Adjusted Index – the same idea but with an additional penalty for operational complexity. This captures setup, custody or KYC needs, monitoring burden, liquidity frictions, and reliance on incentives. 

• Note: Scores are comparative and based on instrument design and recent market behavior. They will evolve as market conditions change.

Takeaways

• Core cash tools remain efficient – High-yield savings, money market funds, CDs, and tokenized cash show high risk-adjusted efficiency and only a small step down when complexity is added. They remain the foundation for most cash needs.

• Complexity matters – Strategies that rely on protocol mechanics, incentives, leverage, or active management show a larger gap between the two indices. That gap is a proxy for ongoing work and operational risk.

• Use tactical tools selectively – Restaking, liquid restaking, yield tokens, AMM liquidity, and similar strategies can elevate headline returns, but efficiency falls once risk and complexity are considered. These strategies typically show lower efficiency once risk and complexity are considered and are characterized by higher operational load and sensitivity to incentives and liquidity.

• Read the bar pairs – A small distance between the black bar (risk-adjusted) and the orange bar (risk- and complexity-adjusted) signals a simple, “set and forget” instrument. A wide distance signals higher operational load and the need for stricter sizing and guardrails.

The comparison of instruments shows a clear tradeoff. Core cash tools deliver dependable yield with low risk but often live in separate apps. Higher yielding options can add complexity and monitoring. Onchain options show promise but are still too complex for the average investor and crypto curious investor. All else equal, investors want premium yield without the headache.

GalaxyOne. Built for those who expect more

The yield offerings on GalaxyOne are built to split that difference. The platform is designed to make your money work harder and maximize the yield potential of every dollar. Yield is presented alongside other assets, and clients can elect to have monthly interest auto-reinvest into bitcoin or other assets.

GalaxyOne Cash offers one of the highest yield rates on cash deposits at 4.00% Annual Percentage Yield (APY)*— 10 times the national savings average of 0.40% (as of September 2025, FDIC) and higher than the market average offered by other leading fintechs (at the time of writing). It seeks to deliver policy-rate pass through with a low risk profile, daily liquidity, and transparent pricing, all in one app alongside the rest of your portfolio.

For U.S. accredited investors** — one in five, or nearly 24 million U.S. households, according to a 2023 report by the SEC — Galaxy Premium Yield offers even greater yield advantage. If you qualify as an accredited investor, you can earn 8.00% yield*** on your cash.  Yield is generated by Galaxy’s institutional lending business, active since 2018. Your funds are supported by an institutional-grade risk management framework designed to safeguard capital and deliver consistent, risk-adjusted returns. Galaxy Premium Yield is issued by Galaxy Digital LP and guaranteed by Galaxy Digital Holdings LP, a subsidiary of Galaxy Digital Inc. (Nasdaq: GLXY). Trusted by institutions—now available on GalaxyOne to accredited investors looking for maximum yield on cash. 

To every investor who feels like their cash doesn’t earn enough or is looking for a more convenient way to grow their assets, all while investing into equities and crypto, GalaxyOne was precision-built for you. With a robust platform roadmap for lending, trading and yield-generating products and services, our mission is to deliver advanced financial products and features to investors that expect more.

Get started today: one.galaxy.app/sign-up

*APY is effective as of 9/23/2025 and may change at any time before or after account opening.

**An accredited investor, as defined by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under Rule 501 of Regulation D, includes an individual permitted to invest in certain private securities offerings not registered with the SEC. This status is based on income or net worth.

***APY is effective as of 9/23/2025 and can be changed upon 30-day prior notice for Galaxy Premium Yield. This is an investment product, not a bank deposit, and is not FDIC insured.

Disclosures: 

Galaxy Premium Yield Investment Note to be offered and sold has not been registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the securities laws of any state. Such notes may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration with the SEC or an applicable exemption from registration requirements. All investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. To obtain more information about and to consider investing in Galaxy Premium Yield, please see here.

This blog post shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of the Galaxy Premium Yield Investment Note in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.

GalaxyOne Cash account deposits held at Cross River Bank, Member FDIC. Insured up to $250,000.

Digital assets are highly volatile, not legal tender, and not backed by any government. Investments in cryptoassets involve significant risk, including the potential loss of all principal. Digital assets available on GalaxyOne are held in custodial wallets with Paxos Trust Company, a New York State-chartered trust company regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services. These assets are not insured by the FDIC or SIPC.

Crypto trading on GalaxyOne may be subject to execution, network, or withdrawal fees, including applicable blockchain transaction ("gas") fees. While GalaxyOne does not charge spread markups, other costs may apply. Crypto transactions may trigger taxable events; please consult your tax advisor to understand your individual tax obligations.

GalaxyOne’s crypto services are offered in partnership with Paxos. By using these services, you agree to the GalaxyOne Digital Asset Customer Agreement and Risk Disclosure, available here.

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