Opinion by: Armando Aguilar, head of capital formation and growth at TeraHash
For years, Bitcoin was seen as a completely inert asset—simply a decentralized storage that remained economically passive despite a fixed issuance schedule. However, over $7 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) now generates native, on-chain yield via major protocols, signaling a shift in perception.
While gold’s ~$23-trillion market cap generally stays idle, Bitcoin is actively earning on-chain, and holders maintain custody. With new layers providing returns, Bitcoin transitions from a passive asset to one that is productively scarce.
This transformation is reshaping how capital assesses risk, how institutions allocate reserves, and how portfolio theory treats safety. While scarcity may elucidate price stability, productivity drives miners, treasuries, and funds to invest in BTC instead of merely surrounding it.
A yield-generating vault asset is no longer digital gold; it has evolved into productive capital.
Scarcity matters, but productivity rules
The economic principles of Bitcoin remain intact: the supply remains capped at 21 million, issuance is transparent, and there’s no central authority to inflate or censor it. While factors like scarcity, auditability, and resistance to manipulation have always distinguished Bitcoin, by 2025, these elements began to carry additional significance.
Despite a fixed issuance rate, new protocol layers enable BTC to generate on-chain returns, prompting Bitcoin to gain traction for its capabilities. A fresh set of tools empowers holders to earn genuine yield without relinquishing custody, steering clear of centralized platforms and altering the base protocol. This innovation leaves Bitcoin’s foundational mechanics unchanged but transforms capital engagement with the asset.
Evidence of this change is increasingly apparent. Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency officially included in sovereign reserves: El Salvador continues to incorporate BTC into its national treasury, and a 2025 US executive order identified Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset for critical infrastructure. Additionally, spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) currently hold over 1.26 million BTC—over 6% of the total supply.
Related: US Bitcoin reserve vs. gold and oil reserves: How do they compare?
On the mining front, public miners have shifted from immediate selling to allocating an increasing percentage of BTC into staking and synthetic yield strategies, enhancing long-term returns.
It’s becoming clear that the original value proposition has been subtly redefined in structure but profoundly changed in impact. What once positioned Bitcoin as reliable is now also making it influential—a once passive asset is evolving into a yield-producing asset. This sets the stage for the emergence of a native yield curve surrounding Bitcoin itself, as well as Bitcoin-linked assets.
Bitcoin earns without giving up control
Previously, the concept of earning returns on crypto felt distant. For Bitcoin, non-custodial yield options were challenging to find, particularly without sacrificing base-layer neutrality. That notion is no longer valid. Today, new protocol layers empower holders to utilize BTC in ways that were previously confined to centralized platforms.
Certain platforms allow long-term holders to stake native BTC to secure the network while generating yield—without having to wrap the asset or move it across chains. Others enable users to employ their Bitcoin in decentralized finance applications, earning fees from swaps and lending without losing ownership. Crucially, none of these systems require handing over keys to third parties or rely on the opaque yield strategies that caused past issues.
It is evident that this progress has moved beyond pilot phases. Furthermore, miner-aligned tactics are gaining popularity among firms aiming to enhance treasury efficiency within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Consequently, a yield curve inherent to Bitcoin and built on transparency is beginning to materialize.
As Bitcoin yield becomes self-custodied and accessible, a new challenge arises: how to measure it? With emerging protocols becoming available, clarity is still lacking. Without a standard to define what productive BTC earns, investors, treasuries, and miners are left to make decisions without certainty.
Time to benchmark Bitcoin yield
If Bitcoin can yield returns, the next logical step is to establish a straightforward method to measure it.
Persisting inconsistencies hinder the establishment of a standard. Some investors regard BTC as hedge capital, while others employ it to earn yield. However, there is no definitive benchmark for measuring Bitcoin, given the lack of comparable assets. For example, a treasury team may decide to lock coins for a week but find it difficult to communicate the associated risk; or a miner could employ rewards in a yield strategy but still perceive it as treasury diversification.
Consider a mid-sized decentralized autonomous organization with 1,200 BTC and six months of payroll prepared. It places half into a 30-day vault on a Bitcoin-secured protocol generating yield. However, without a baseline, the team cannot ascertain whether this move is defensive or aggressive. That same decision could be viewed as wise treasury management or criticized as yield chasing, depending on the perspective of the evaluator.
What Bitcoin requires is a benchmark—not a “risk-free rate” analogous to the bond market, but a consistent baseline for repeatable, self-custodied, and on-chain yield generated natively on Bitcoin, net of fees, categorized by term lengths—seven days, 30, and 90 days. Just sufficient structure to convert yield from uncertainty into something measurable and usable as a benchmark.
Once this framework exists, treasury policies, disclosures, and strategies can be developed around it, allowing everything exceeding that baseline to be appraised for what it truly is: risk worth taking or not.
This is where the analogy with gold diverges. Gold does not yield returns—productive Bitcoin does. As long as treasuries continue treating BTC as a non-yielding vault asset, it becomes simpler to identify those managing capital effectively versus those simply storing it.
Opinion by: Armando Aguilar, head of capital formation and growth at TeraHash.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
