As technology has evolved the accessibility and usability of money has alongside it. Today we'll be comparing traditional and modern ways to earn interest on your money. To find the best method we will be outlining the risks that each method exposes you to and detailing which methods seem the most useful during a recession.

Earning Interest The Traditional Way:

If you're looking to earn interest while remaining insured by the FDIC then you likely want to use one of the following banks to maximize your yield. Since your money remains insured up to $250,000 in most banks this is considered the safest method of earning interest.

  • UFB Direct - 3.01% APY and no minimum deposit or maintenance fees
  • CitiBank - 2.70% APY and no maintenance fees. $100 minimum deposit required.  
  • Barclays - 2.25% APY and no minimum deposit or maintenance fees

Earning Interest On Bonds:

All though bonds aren't FDIC insured the high yields may make it an attractive option. Most investors consider it essential to keep a portion of your portfolio invested in bonds to hedge against inflation or to continue to earn a yield during times of economic slowdown. If you'd like to make it easy to add a diversified position in the bond market to your portfolio then you could consider using a Core Bond ETF. Here are a few higher yield options:

Savings bonds are another option if you are looking to expand the bond exposure in your portfolio, and yields are currently sky high at about 9.62% APY.

Fortunately the days of paper exclusive bonds are now over and you can now buy bonds directly from the US government using Treasury Direct. Keep in mind that these bonds are best used as long term investments, and selling them before they've matured for five years will result in a forfeiture of the last three months of interest. It's also good to note that a new rate will be released next month and it's predicted rates will decline to 7.16%. The rates change every six months and are usually adjusted for inflation, so seeing rates go down would be a positive sign that The Fed's recent rate adjustments are having the expected effect on markets.

For more detailed info regarding bonds you can consult this article.

Earn Interest Using Coinbase Earn or Circle Yield:

Looking at the current yields for both Coinbase Earn and Circle Yield it seems that there are only a few very specific situations in which you might want to either of the two.

Circle Yield is currently offering a paltry 0.25% APY on your USDC, and Coinbase Earn comes in even lower at 0.15%. This makes both of them orders of magnitude less efficient than even a basic savings account while being more risky.

These programs don't have much mainstream appeal and would likely only be very useful to you if you hold any margin positions through Silvergate Bank or if you need to have your dollars available immediately for trading with any of their partnered banks. This is because Circle Yield will allow instant transfers between these institutions, very handy for making scalping trades or covering margin before liquidation.

Earning Interest With Gemini Grow:

The option that seems most attractive outside of traditional methods of earning interest would be using Gemini's Grow program to earn 5.9% APY on your USD.

Whether or not this is worth it to you depends on your personal situation. Personally I believe that earning about twice the amount of interest that's possible using a savings account is worth a fair bit of risk, but others wh0 are more conservative investors may not agree as your money isn't FDIC insured with this method.

Conclusion:

With more traditional methods of earning interest currently posting high yields it's likely that the average investor will be happiest finding a high rate savings account or scooping up bonds for further yield. However if you are looking for a non-traditional method of earning interest then Gemini Grow seems to be the best choice.

All of the rates in this article are subject to change, and yield/risk will shift over time. If The Fed successfully combats inflation we will likely see yield on savings accounts and bonds decrease, possibly making less traditional methods more attractive once more.