Have you noticed that it has become increasingly difficult to find suitable financial products in recent years?
Bank interest rates continue to decline, and the returns on government bonds and money market funds can't even keep up with inflation, while insurance financial products are quietly "downgrading". For users hoping to appreciate their assets, browsing through financial apps and seeing yields around 1% is truly disheartening.
We seem to be living in an era with an unprecedented variety of financial products, but ways to "steadily make money" are becoming harder to find. Against this backdrop, financial methods originally belonging to the crypto circle - especially blockchain-based financial products using stablecoins - are quietly entering more people's view.
Why are stablecoin financial products worth paying attention to?
As a digital asset anchored to legal tender, stablecoins do not have the price volatility of Bitcoin, but instead serve more of a "digital cash" function. Stablecoin financial products allow users to lend, stake, or invest their idle stablecoins on-chain or on centralized platforms to obtain corresponding annual returns.
This might sound unfamiliar, but the logic is not complex - just like banks lending out your deposits to earn interest spreads. However, in the on-chain world, this "spread" is more transparent and the returns more reasonable. Currently, common stablecoin financial products can be roughly divided into the following categories:
Looking at data from the first half of this year, the annual interest rates for USDT/USDC in mainstream DeFi lending protocols mostly fluctuate between 2.5% and 4%; some DeFi platforms provide total annual yields that may exceed 8% through liquidity mining or reward mechanisms, but this comes with higher volatility and lock-up requirements. In comparison, fixed-income products, although not having the highest annual yields, are generally stable and rising, with the highest reaching around 5%. With advantages like stable returns and low barriers to entry, they have become the first choice for many users' on-chain financial management.
More importantly, the flexibility and user experience of these products are rapidly improving. Users only need to hold stablecoins, then choose a platform and product type to make a one-click purchase. Some platforms even support flexible deposits and withdrawals with daily interest calculations. This operation method is as convenient as Alipay's Yu'E Bao, yet can earn interest similar to US Treasury bonds; as stable as a fixed deposit, but without early redemption penalties. Isn't this "stable yet flexible" experience exactly what users are seeking in financial management?
Here is a comparison between stablecoin financial products and traditional fixed-income market products:
It's not difficult to see that the attractiveness of stablecoin financial products is not just about yield rates. Besides returns, these products offer high redemption flexibility, with most supporting flexible deposits and withdrawals, daily interest calculations, and no lock-up periods, truly achieving "non-idle assets". Additionally, in terms of transparency, most platforms disclose income sources, risk statements, and fund flows, with some even using on-chain data to verify fund safety in real-time. More importantly, they make user returns more reasonable: platforms no longer "eat the interest spread" but instead distribute real lending or matching revenues proportionally to investors, which directly reflects the on-chain financial system's "value return to users".
Where do stablecoin financial product returns come from?
Stablecoin financial product return structures mainly have three sources: first, on-chain lending interest, where platforms lend users' locked stablecoins to other users for returns; second, staking rewards or node income, especially in Staking products; third, profit distribution from participating in options or yield-layered strategies. For users, as long as the platform's product structure is openly transparent and asset custody is secure, it can be considered a "fixed-income-like product" on the chain.
Currently, the number of active on-chain stablecoin addresses continues to grow. Although there are no precise statistics on "stablecoin financial product user numbers", the scale is rapidly expanding based on on-chain activity and capital inflows. Especially in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, where local currencies are unstable and financial system coverage is insufficient, stablecoins have become an important means for residents to hedge against local currency depreciation and obtain US dollar asset returns.
It's worth noting that institutional funds are continuously entering the market. Insurance companies, family offices, and funds have incorporated stablecoin financial products into liquidity management tools as part of their US dollar asset pools. This trend is driving platforms to continuously upgrade risk control, transparency, and compliance, providing more mature product environments and service experiences for individual users.
From an ordinary user's perspective, stablecoin financial products are not a "get-rich-quick" business, but might be the quietest yet most stable source of returns in your asset allocation. It's more like a "digital cash asset" piece in the financial puzzle - higher yield than current accounts, lower volatility than stocks, suitable for finding certain returns in uncertain environments. As stablecoin regulatory frameworks become clearer in regions like Hong Kong, Europe, and Southeast Asia, users will have more safe, compliant, and transparently profitable products to choose from.
However, stablecoin financial products are still an emerging field, and risk identification cannot be ignored. Some stablecoins might face de-pegging risks due to settlement mechanisms or anchored asset management issues, such as TUSD and USDD experiencing fluctuations; smart contract audits and security measures also affect fund safety. Therefore, ordinary users should choose top-tier platforms or institutionally regulated products, prioritize stablecoin financial products with clear return structures and flexible redemption, and remain cautious about "annual yields above 10%" and other high-yield products. Steady, transparent, and compliant approaches are the premise for long-term participation.
In today's low-interest environment, stablecoin financial products offer users more stable investment choices. You may not need to embrace the entire crypto world, but you can at least have a transparent, safe "crypto savings account" with around 5% annual returns through stablecoins - finding certain returns amidst uncertainty.
