The risk-free rate,
tokenized.

Abstract

Bytode is a fully-reserved, yield-bearing ERC-20 token backed one-for-one by short-dated U.S. Treasury bills on Robinhood Chain. It passes the ordinary Treasury-bill rate through on-chain: net asset value rebases daily as the underlying bills accrue, and holders can subscribe and redeem against USDC on demand.

The design goal is narrow and deliberate — put the risk-free rate on-chain with institutional-grade proof and no duration or credit reach. Reserves are held by a regulated qualified custodian, attested every 24 hours, and hashed on-chain.

1 · Thesis

As of mid-2026, on-chain real-world assets total roughly $34B, of which tokenized U.S. Treasuries are the largest category — over $15B and about 80% of the total. Treasuries are becoming the reserve asset and settlement collateral of on-chain finance.

Yet most access is either wrapped in opaque structures or gated to a handful of institutions. Bytode offers a single, verifiable token that any eligible holder can subscribe to, hold, and redeem — while publishing the reserve in full.

2 · The instrument

$BYTODE is an ERC-20 token. Subscribing deposits USDC with the transfer agent, which issues $BYTODE at the live NAV to a whitelisted wallet. There are no rebasing rewards tokens or emissions — the token itself appreciates as NAV rises.

Reserves comprise 0–3 month U.S. Treasury bills, overnight reverse-repo collateralized by U.S. Treasuries, and a USDC settlement buffer. The reserve ratio is maintained at 102.1% of tokens outstanding, with a weighted-average maturity (WAM) of 21 days.

3 · Reserve composition & maturity ladder

Holdings are disclosed at CUSIP level. The ladder is kept short and liquid: 4-week, 8-week and 13-week bills rolled continuously, plus overnight repo for same-day liquidity. Short WAM keeps the discount-rate sensitivity of NAV small, so mark-to-market moves are modest and redemptions clear cleanly.

Approximate maturity distribution: 0–7 days 21% · 8–30 days 46.3% · 31–90 days 28.1% · 90 days + 4.6%.

4 · Yield mechanics

Treasury bills are issued at a discount and redeem at par; the accretion is the yield. Bytode passes this coupon through by rebasing NAV daily — one $BYTODE steadily becomes worth more than one dollar. Against a 3-month T-bill discount rate near 3.8% and SOFR near 4.08%, the flagship yields 4.52% net APY after a disclosed 0.15% management fee.

Yield is not fixed: it tracks the yield-to-maturity of the ladder as bills roll. There is no leverage, no maturity transformation and no credit spread — the return is the U.S. government's, less the fee.

5 · Proof of reserve & attestation

An independent agent reconciles reserve holdings against $BYTODE outstanding every 24 hours and publishes a signed attestation whose hash is written to Robinhood Chain. 1284+ attestations have been published; each is verifiable against the CUSIP-level holdings on the transparency page.

6 · Redemption & settlement

Redemption burns $BYTODE and returns USDC at the prevailing NAV with T+0 settlement. Because the ladder is short and carries an overnight-repo and USDC buffer, redemptions are met from liquidity rather than forced bill sales. Minimum subscription is $1.

7 · Why Robinhood Chain

Robinhood Chain is an Ethereum L2 on the Arbitrum Orbit stack, purpose-built for tokenized RWAs, with mainnet live since 1 July 2026. It has no native token — gas is paid in ETH — settles to Ethereum, and supports self-custody and bridging into Ethereum DeFi. A Treasury-backed token belongs where RWA settlement is native.

8 · Risk factors

Interest-rate risk (NAV moves with short-Treasury discount rates); stablecoin and USDC de-peg risk on the subscription/redemption leg; custody and transfer-agent operational risk; smart-contract risk (audited, never zero); and regulatory treatment of yield-bearing tokens, which varies by jurisdiction. Past yield does not guarantee future results; digital assets involve risk of loss.

9 · Legal

Interests are offered under Reg D Rule 506(c) and Regulation S to eligible non-U.S. persons and qualified purchasers only, subject to KYC and eligibility verification before whitelisting. This document describes protocol mechanics and is not an offer or solicitation to sell securities in any jurisdiction. Bytode is not available to U.S. persons.