Once considered an asset insulated from Wall Street, Bitcoin is now being revalued by sharply dressed financial traders using a strange new indicator.

Last month, after the US government rebooted and economic data was released, no one in the community was bragging about technological breakthroughs anymore. All eyes were focused on a cold, hard number—the real yield of the 10-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). This thing once made an analyst like me, who has been in the industry for years, admit a painful truth: the pricing logic of cryptocurrencies is undergoing a profound transformation.

**What exactly is the TIPS real yield? Simply put, it reflects the "true cost" of money.** When this number rises, risk-free returns also go up, and investors start to wonder—why hold onto Bitcoin that neither produces income nor carries high risk?

The market in 2022 brutally proved this point. That year, the 10-year Treasury yield hit an 11-year high, and Bitcoin plummeted below $19,000. High-risk assets suffered collectively, and even the returns from crypto lending platforms seemed insignificant compared to US Treasuries.

Currently, this rate is around 1.83%, higher than it was mid-year. Don’t think of this as a small number—it’s like an invisible ruler constantly reassessing the value of your Bitcoin.