Key senators who are instrumental in advancing legislation on crypto market structure could soon be willing to move forward with the bill, people familiar with the matter told CoinDesk.
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Cryptocurrency traders’ hopes are rising with the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, Senate legislation that represents the sector’s top-priority policy hope. Key senators, those who had been dragging their feet on the performance of stablecoins, are reviewing what appears to be a final opinion from bankers on what their industry would consider acceptable, according to people familiar with the talks.
After weeks of an increasingly tense relationship between crypto experts and bank representatives tasked with reaching a compromise, it came to a head this week with new legislative language circulating from bankers over the stablecoin rewards debate. President Donald Trump made an aggressive argument on his Truth Social site that banks were trying to use the Clarity Act to undermine the already passed stablecoin law, the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.
“The Genius Act was America’s first big step in making the United States the cryptocurrency capital of the world, and getting the Clarity Act passed is the next step in finishing the job and, most importantly, keeping this large and powerful industry in our country,” Trump had argued, after meeting with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. “Banks should not attempt to undermine the Genius Act or hold the Clarity Act hostage.”
Summer Mersinger, executive director of the Blockchain Association, said the White House “intervening in the negotiations and encouraging banks to negotiate in good faith adds important momentum as talks continue.”
For their part, banks have maintained that the foundation of American banking and lending depends on customer deposits, and they say a crypto industry alternative to those accounts could derail banks. That argument hit hard with Sens. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, and Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat from Maryland, and the rest of the Senate Banking Committee has been waiting to see if they are ready to move forward with a markup on the bill. At this point, an emerging compromise that may allow for a narrow range of stablecoin rewards appears to be similar to positions lawmakers have previously favored.
In an interview with CNBC, JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon appeared to signal his industry’s openness to the commitment that there is room to reward stablecoin activities and transactions, as long as stablecoins held in one place are not rewarded with a return that resembles the interest on a savings account. He also said that crypto companies that function as depository institutions should have to follow the same strict regulators as banks.
President Trump’s son Eric added his opinion on the social media site Eric Trump called bankers “anti-consumer and openly anti-American.”
“Let me make this very clear: Big banks (think JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc.) are pushing overtime to prevent Americans from earning higher returns on their savings, while trying to block any rewards or benefits from being given to customers,” he wrote.
While all these comments are circulating, cryptocurrency representatives are quietly hoping that the Clarity Law will come into force next week.
“Senator Tillis has been very receptive to our discussions regarding the performance of stablecoins,” Cody Carbone, executive director of the Digital Chamber, said in a statement to CoinDesk. “I’m optimistic that we will find a way to get to a ‘yes’ vote on the bill, and we appreciate their work in trying to advance market structure rules.”
If the Senate Banking Committee can advance the bill through a review hearing, the language will be combined with an earlier version that already passed the Senate Agriculture Committee on a party-line vote. The combined version, however, would need significant support from Democrats if it has any chance of passing a vote in the full Senate.
The process still faces ticking in the Senate, where floor time is at a premium, and midterm legislative elections will disperse lawmakers starting this summer. The Senate calendar is likely to allow only a couple more months of leeway before the door begins to close on a 2026 Clarity Act.
Thursday
- 14:00 UTC (10:00 am ET) The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee will hold a meeting in which, among other topics, it will discuss a recommendation on how the regulator should handle tokenized equity securities.
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