Ask a board how much of the treasury they’re comfortable putting to work, and you’ll usually get a shrug and “it depends.” That’s fair, but a shrug doesn’t approve a budget, so here’s how this decision could realistically play out.
Picture a crypto-native company sitting on a large pile of stablecoin reserves. Treasury wants that money to earn something, so the board gets asked to approve placing part of it in a business deposit plan.
The first question in the room isn’t really about yield. It’s how much they can lock up without getting caught short when a bill lands. In the meeting I’d imagine, one director keeps asking what happens if the market drops the same week payroll is due, and honestly that’s the right question to keep asking.
Where the Providers Come In
Once the board is on side with the idea, the treasury starts comparing providers. It’s worth looking at a few of the options side by side, since each one suits a different part of the reserve.
A product like WhiteBIT Crypto Lending for Businesses could suit a team that wants fixed-term deposits: individual plans start from 600,000 USDT, terms can run from about 10 days to a few years, and you can open plans in several cryptocurrencies to spread the risk.
If the company would rather stake than lend, it might also look at BitGo Staking, which says it serves thousands of businesses and lets you delegate from self-custody or custodial wallets, or at Kraken Institutional Staking, which covers custodial and non-custodial staking across 40 protocols with 24/7/365 support.
Staking works differently from a lending deposit. Rewards depend on the network instead of a set term, so those options would probably suit a different slice of the reserve.
Writing The Rule
Now the board’s real job starts. Rather than debating every placement, they write a rule. A sensible version could say, “Keep a fixed operating buffer untouched, let treasury place anything above it in deposit plans within agreed term limits, and review the whole thing every quarter.” The buffer is the part that makes everyone sleep. It’s the money that pays suppliers and salaries even if every deposit is locked up at the same time, so it should never be treated as spare cash.
Putting Rough Numbers On It
Say the company holds $10M in stablecoins, and its operating buffer covers three months of expenses, which is $3M. That leaves $7M available to place. At the 600,000 USDT minimum, that could in theory cover around eleven plans, though most boards would rather keep it to a few larger ones that are easier to track. The term cap might be twelve months, so no single placement tied up cash for longer than the board is comfortable with.
Who Holds The Pen
Who can change the split matters just as much as the split itself, and this is where a lot of treasury policies get fuzzy. Boards often write the number but forget to write the person. In this setup, treasury can move money between placements inside the rule, but anything that breaks the buffer or the term cap goes back to the board. Then the quarterly review checks whether the buffer still fits the actual cost base, because a company that doubled its headcount last year doesn’t need the same cushion. If the numbers have shifted, the policy gets updated in the same meeting, not quietly rewritten by someone in treasury three months later.
The Boring Result
The result is pretty boring, and honestly that’s the point. Nobody gets a dramatic story out of a good treasury policy. Treasury gets clear room to act, the board keeps control through the policy and the reviews, and nobody has to re-argue the same question every time a deposit comes up 📋
Disclaimer: This is not financial or investment advice. Do your own research before making any decisions. Use at your own risk.
Ten Million in Stablecoins, Three Million Untouchable. Now What? was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.