−0.78 % p.a.
The bitcoin own-rate implied by three-month forwards at 3 venues, against a dollar curve of 3.85%. No listed expiry falls inside the three-month window today, so this fixing is interpolated between the expiries either side of it and is drawn dashed.
Negative is the normal state of this curve. When the annualised basis exceeds the dollar rate — as it does at every tenor today — the market is pricing bitcoin as negative-carry against dollars, which is commodity behaviour rather than currency behaviour. The sign convention is derived and empirically tested before any figure here is published.
THE CURVE — IMPLIED BITCOIN RATE BY TENOR AND CUSTODY TIER
Covered interest parity from listed forwards. Zero is drawn, not the axis floor. Fixed as of 2026-08-28.
COST PANEL: EVERY VERIFIED DESK PUBLISHES ONE TERM, SO THE PANEL CARRIES ONE TENOR AND NOT A CURVE.
WATERMARKED EXPORT — PNG 2× · SVG · CARRIES THE DATA DATE 2026-08-28, NOT THE EXPORT DATE
| TENOR | IMPLIED — BTC, % P.A., BY CUSTODY TIER | OBSERVED BTC, % P.A. | QUOTED BTC, % P.A. | COST USD, % P.A. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T1 SELF-COLD | T2 SELF-HOT | T3 COLLAB. | T4 CUSTODIAL | T5 REHYP. | ||||
| 1W | — | — | — | −1.12° | — | — | (29.62–29.62) | — |
| 1M | — | — | −2.20° | −0.54° | — | 5.04 | (0.00–22.15) | — |
| 3M | — | — | −1.89 | −0.78° | — | 1.18 | (0.12–20.68) | — |
| 6M | — | — | — | −0.79° | — | 0.85 | (0.22–2.41) | — |
| 1Y | — | — | — | −0.88° | — | — | — | 10.49 |
° INTERPOLATED — INFERRED, NOT OBSERVED · ( ) QUOTED, NOT FILLED — AN ASK THAT MAY NEVER CLEAR · — NO SOURCE AT THIS TENOR AND TIER
WHAT THIS FIXING SAYS
Three readings, stated rather than left to the chart.
- The implied curve is negative at every tenor. It runs —% at one week to —% at six months, against a dollar curve of 3.80–4.02%. Borrowing bitcoin is cheap because everyone wants to be long it with someone else's dollars.
- Observed BTC-native yield is positive where the implied curve is negative. Cleared Lightning channel leases at three months paid 1.18% p.a. across 84 transactions. That is a different market from the forward market, not a contradiction of it — one is a lease of real liquidity, the other is the residual in a financing trade.
- The spread is the headline. Bitcoin earns 1.18% in bitcoin while dollars cost 10.49% against bitcoin collateral — −9.3 percentage points, and the two numbers are in different units, which is why they are never plotted on one axis. The series is here.
- Venue divergence at three months is 1.29 percentage points across 4 venues. That gap is credit risk and capital constraint, not noise. The regulated leg is absent — see sources for why.
VENUE DIVERGENCE — THE PRICE OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VENUES
Where two venues quote a forward at the same tenor they imply two bitcoin rates. The gap is credit risk and capital constraint, not noise, so it is published as a series rather than averaged away.
| TENOR | DERIBIT T4 · LIVE MID | OKX T4 · LIVE MID | CME T3 · SETTLE | BYBIT T4 · PRINT | SPREAD MAX − MIN, PP | REGULATED CME − OFFSHORE | VENUES |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1W | −0.74 | −1.50 | — | — | 0.76 | ABSENT | 2 |
| 1M | −0.15 | −0.70 | −2.20 | −0.54 | 2.05 | −1.65 | 4 |
| 3M | −0.88 | −0.78 | −1.89 | −0.60 | 1.29 | −1.11 | 4 |
| 6M | −0.82 | −0.76 | — | — | 0.06 | ABSENT | 2 |
| 1Y | — | −0.88 | — | — | — | ABSENT | 1 |
— NO QUOTE AT THIS TENOR AND VENUE · ABSENT MEANS THE REGULATED LEG HAS NO SOURCE, NOT THAT THE SPREAD IS ZERO · A TENOR SHOWN FOR ONE VENUE HAS NO SPREAD TO REPORT
OBSERVATION BASIS — DERIBIT: LIVE · OKX: LIVE · CME: 08/27/2026 SETTLE · BYBIT: 2026-08-27 LAST PRINT ·
A live mid and a prior-session settle are not simultaneous. Deribit and OKX are read live; CME and Bybit are the previous session's settlement instant, aligned to each other so that the regulated-versus-offshore comparison — the one worth watching — is drawn between two venues observed at the same moment. Read a spread that crosses the live/settled boundary with that in mind; at three months a 1% move between the two instants is worth about four percentage points of implied rate. Where the regulated leg has no settle at a tenor it is reported absent, never as zero, because a zero would assert that the two curves agree.
BY CUSTODY TIER — SMALL MULTIPLES
One panel per tier. A tier with no venue has no line, and says so.
The overnight anchor is absent. Boltring — a sibling product operated by the same company, disclosed in the methodology — has not begun exporting transacted rebalancing clearing prices. The curve renders without it, as it is designed to, and rebalancing fees will be published in parts per million per rebalance rather than annualised, because a rebalance is instantaneous and annualising it produces a number that is large, precise and meaningless.