YieldScope Rate Report #4: A 55% Rate, Six Days Later — and Why Kraken's 4% Depends on Where You Live

We take a snapshot of flexible crypto rates every day, grade each venue from A to F on five public safety checks, and keep the full daily history. This is the fourth YieldScope Rate Report, covering October 9–15, 2026. Every number below can be checked on the site.

Three stories this week: a rate that went from under 1% to 55% and back in six days, a 4% stablecoin rate closed to residents of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and the EEA, and six venues whose grade went up after we applied our own track-record rule as written. Corrections are at the end.

A 55% rate, six days later

On October 8 Binance paid 0.38% a year on flexible KAIA. On October 9 our snapshot read 55.67%. Then, one reading a day:

• October 9 — 55.67%
• October 10 — 52.45%
• October 11 — 40.57%
• October 12 — 30.92%
• October 13 — 22.69%
• October 14 — 19.09%
• October 15 — 6.36%

Binance was not alone. Bybit's flexible KAIA rate went from 1.87% on October 10 to 73.60% on October 11, then 36.78% and 24.55%, and has held at 24.51% for two days. Gate went from 1.00% on October 9 to 23.44% on October 12 and 25.00% on October 14, then fell to 6.84% on October 15. Bitget's KAIA product paid 1.00% every day of the week.

These are the venues' own base flexible rates, not promotional tiers. On lending-backed products the rate follows demand to borrow the coin: when borrowers want KAIA, savers are paid more, and when demand fades the rate falls back. Three venues moving within three days of each other, and then decaying, looks like one wave of demand passing through the market. We do not know what drove it, and we will not guess.

What it means in money: someone who moved KAIA into Binance's flexible product on October 9, at 55.67%, earned at an average annualised rate of about 32.5% over the next seven days, and on day seven the rate was 6.36%. A flexible rate is a daily snapshot, not a promise. The headline number on the day you deposit says little about what you earn next week.

KAIA was not the only wave. BAT moved the same way across three venues: OKX went from 13.07% on October 8 to 78.72% on October 14 and 35.12% a day later; Bitget from 1.00% on October 6 to 42.73% on October 10, now 28.96%; Bybit from 0.86% on October 8 to 40.02% on October 14.

Kraken's 4% depends on where you live

Our board shows Kraken paying 4.00% on flexible USDT and USDC. That rate runs through Kraken's Opt-In Rewards programme, and Kraken's own licensing page, updated on September 30, says who can use it:

• United Kingdom — clients cannot use Opt-In Rewards
• Australia — Opt-In Rewards are not available
• Canada — clients cannot use Opt-In Rewards
• United States — only accredited investors can
• EEA — Opt-In Rewards are available for bitcoin only

For USDC there is a second programme, Stablecoin Rewards (Kraken's article, updated October 1). In the US, Canada, Australia and the UK it pays up to 2.00% without a subscription and up to 4.00% with paid Kraken+. USDT is not part of it, so in those four countries Kraken pays nothing on USDT. In the EEA, Kraken has delisted USDT under MiCA (its note on the change was last updated on April 13), and USDC is not among the regions Stablecoin Rewards lists.

So the same 4% is real for some readers and unavailable to others, and nothing on a rate table says so. This week we started tracking availability per product, not only per venue. On our United Kingdom page Kraken now shows no USDT rate and 2.00% on USDC; until October 14 it showed 4% on both. Our new Australia page follows the same rule, and the US, Canada and Germany pages will too when they launch.

What moved this week

We compared each venue's flexible rate on October 9 and October 15 for the top 200 coins by market cap. The largest increases:

• BAT — Bybit Earn (C) — 5.08% → 40.02%
• KAIA — Bybit Earn (C) — 1.87% → 24.51%
• RAY — OKX Earn (B) — 20.50% → 43.08%
• TIA — Gate.io Earn (A) — 2.15% → 21.00%
• BAT — OKX Earn (B) — 18.15% → 35.12%

The largest decreases:

• KAIA — Binance Earn (B) — 55.67% → 6.36%
• TRUMP — OKX Earn (B) — 27.25% → 8.19%
• MANA — OKX Earn (B) — 26.99% → 17.05%
• MET — OKX Earn (B) — 43.67% → 34.02%
• BAT — Bitget Earn (B) — 38.53% → 28.96%

Of 960 venue-and-coin pairs, 113 moved by half a percentage point or more and 603 did not move at all. We left out seven moves larger than 100 points, which read as lending-pool spikes rather than rates anyone could hold, and two series we could not verify: Bitget's MET, which read 365% on October 7 and 8, and Gate's USD1, which switched between 0.10% and about 6.2% from one day to the next. Grades are as of October 15.

Stablecoins: a quiet week

Base rates on dollar stablecoins barely moved. The changes worth noting, October 9 to October 15:

• Gate.io Earn USDC — 2.29% → 2.56%
• Bitget Earn USDC — 1.62% → 2.81%
• OKX Earn USDC — 3.87% → 3.52%
• Binance Earn USDC — 2.56% → 1.92%
• Backpack Exchange USDT — 1.72% → 1.38%

Where the board stands on October 15, two venues per grade, base flexible rates:

* Not available in the UK, Australia, Canada, the EEA or to US retail clients; see above.

The board keeps its shape: the highest stablecoin rates sit on the lowest grades. The full board is on the stablecoins page.

Grades and venues this week

• Six venues moved up. Our method says a venue passes the track-record check after at least two years with no hack, withdrawal freeze or loss of client funds. Several venues were still failing on events older than that. Applied as written on October 13: BingX B → A, Gate B → A, Binance C → B, Nexo C → B, Bitrue F → D, Ledn F → D.
• Bitget's withdrawals are fully back. By October 15 every major coin could be withdrawn, ADA included, three weeks after the September 24 hack. Bitget stays at B: the hack fails its track-record check for the next two years.
• CoinEx is closing. It announced on September 14 that withdrawals remain open until December 22, 2026. We removed its rates and sign-up links and show the deadline on its page.
• New on the board: Poloniex and CoinW, both graded C.

Corrections

• Our country pages quoted term deposits as flexible rates. For each coin they took the first product a venue listed, and for some venues that was a fixed-term deposit. On the UK page Lune.fi's 360-day 29.5% topped a table of flexible rates (its flexible rate is 18%), and on other country pages WhiteBIT's 30-day 11.11% stood in for its 1.94% flexible USDT rate. Fixed on October 14 in eight places across the site.
• Kraken on the UK page. It showed British readers a 4% USDT rate they cannot get. Fixed on October 14, as described above.
• Rate Report #3 carries its own correction, dated October 11.

The short version

• A flexible rate is a daily snapshot. KAIA paid 55.67% on Binance on October 9 and 6.36% on October 15.
• Kraken's 4% on USDT is not available in the UK, Australia, Canada, the EEA or to US retail clients; USDC pays 2% there without a subscription.
• Six venues' grades went up under our two-year rule, Bitget's withdrawals are fully back, and CoinEx closes withdrawals on December 22.

How we grade venues and collect rates is on the transparency page. This report is not financial advice.