Key senators critical to advancing cryptocurrency market structure legislation may soon be willing to advance the bill, people familiar with the matter told CoinDesk.
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Cryptocurrency negotiators are holding out hope for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, Senate legislation that represents the industry’s top policy priority. Key senators — those who have wavered on the issue of stablecoin yields — are scrutinizing bankers’ final take on what their industry deems acceptable, according to people familiar with the matter.
Tensions have been building for weeks between cryptocurrency insiders and bank representatives tasked with crafting a compromise, and this week came to a head when new legislative language circulated among bankers in the debate over stablecoin rewards. President Donald Trump made a fiery argument on his Truth Social website, saying banks were trying to use the Clarification Act to undermine already-passed stablecoin law, the U.S. Stablecoin Guidance and Establishing a National Innovation Act.
“The Genius Act is America’s first step in making America the cryptocurrency capital of the world, and completing the Clarity Act is the next step in completing that work and, most importantly, keeping this huge and powerful industry in our country,” Trump said after meeting with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. “Banks should not try to weaken the Genius Act or hold the Clarity Act hostage.”
Summer Mersinger, chief executive of the Blockchain Association, said the White House’s “engagement in the negotiations and encouraging banks to negotiate in good faith adds significant momentum to the continuation of negotiations.”
Banks, for their part, maintain that the foundation of U.S. banking and lending depends on customer deposits, and they say crypto-industry alternatives to these accounts could undermine banks. The argument was popular with Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., and other members of the Senate Banking Committee had been waiting to see if they were ready to move forward with the bill’s markup. At this point, an emerging compromise that might allow for a narrow range of stablecoin rewards appears to be similar to positions previously supported by lawmakers.
In an interview with CNBC, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon seemed to indicate that the industry is open to compromise and that there is room for incentives for stablecoin activity and trading as long as stablecoins held in one place should not earn returns similar to savings account interest. He also said that cryptocurrency companies that operate like depository institutions should comply with the same strict regulators as banks.
President Trump’s son Eric expressed his views on social media site X. He is an adviser to World Liberty Financial Inc., the cryptocurrency company partly owned by the Trump family, which itself has a stablecoin business. Eric Trump called the bankers “anti-consumer and downright anti-American.”
“Let me be clear: Big banks (like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc.) are lobbying overtime to prevent Americans from receiving higher returns on their savings while trying to prevent any incentives or benefits from being offered to their customers,” he wrote.
With all these comments pouring in, cryptocurrency representatives are quietly hoping that the Clarification Act will be passed next week.
“Senator Tillis has been very receptive to our discussions on stablecoin yields,” Digital Chamber CEO Cody Carbone said in a statement to CoinDesk. “I am optimistic that we will find a way to vote in favor of the bill, and we applaud the work he has done to advance market structure rules.”
If the Senate Banking Committee is able to advance the bill through a markup hearing, the text would be combined with a previous version that had already passed the Senate Agriculture Committee on a party-line vote. Still, if the combined version has a chance of passing the broader Senate, it will need significant support from Democrats.
The process still faces a tight clock in the Senate, where floor time is at a premium and midterm congressional elections will disperse lawmakers starting this summer. The Senate schedule may only allow for a few more months of wiggle room before the door begins to close on the Clarification Act of 2026.
Thursday
- At 14:00 UTC (10:00 AM ET) the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee will hold a meeting to discuss, among other topics, recommendations on how the regulator should handle tokenized equity securities.
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