Bitcoin futures carry trades are quietly beating Treasuries at 7.89% driving $850M Wall Street Bitcoin ETF spree

Synchronized CME and Treasury observations from Aug. 7 put Bitcoin futures carry above government debt, undercutting a comparison that is circulated across crypto markets.

Analyst Marc Baumann put annualized Bitcoin futures basis near 3% and the two-year Treasury yield at 3.8%, saying the crypto spread had trailed the government benchmark for 157 consecutive days. The official Treasury curve recorded the two-year par yield at 4.19% on Aug. 7 and 4.25% on Aug. 10.

A matched-date calculation using the Aug. 7 CME settlement bulletin and the 4 p.m. ET New York Bitcoin benchmark of $64,880 produced three gross annualized readings above the same day's 4.19% Treasury yield. The December contract produced the smallest reading at 5.69% on that basis.

Aug. 7 falls inside the proposed 157-day window, so that observation breaks a streak calculated from comparable CME and BRRNY inputs. A different venue, tenor, roll rule, or net-cost series may produce another figure; Baumann's thread did not disclose those parameters.

How Bitcoin futures carry works

A Bitcoin cash-and-carry position generally pairs a spot purchase with a short futures contract. The trader seeks to capture the premium of futures over spot as the prices converge, while the annualized figure varies with the contract and time remaining to expiry.