Treasury Sold More I Bonds In October Than All of 2021

"Unprecedented volume put significant pressure and strain on the 20-year-old TreasuryDirect application. We tripled TreasuryDirect's capacity last week and saw many customers successfully create accounts and purchase bonds at record levels," the spokesman said.

"Any additional updates to TreasuryDirect during the final days of the rate window, such as a delay to the Nov. 1 rate change, would have posed significant risk to the operational integrity of the system," he added.

Here are the approximate TreasuryDirect.gov sales and new-account statistics for October and last week, the spokesman said Monday. While these figures include some other Treasury securities sold via the website, the "vast, vast, vast majority are I bonds — likely upwards of 95%," he said.

• Friday: 95,482 new accounts and $994,056,487 in purchases.
• Last week: 359,822 new accounts and $3,049,007,049 in purchases.
• October: 731,336 new accounts and $6,948,068,415 in purchases.

"We continue to work towards an updated, modern TreasuryDirect," the spokesman said.

Individuals may purchase up to $10,000 in electronic I bonds per calendar year through TreasuryDirect and $5,000 in paper bonds per year through income tax refunds. I bonds earn interest for 30 years or until cashed. Holders may redeem bonds after 12 months, but if they cash them in before five years they'll forfeit the last three months' interest.

Melanie Waddell contributed reporting.