The stablecoin yield clash that won't go away has banks, crypto battling over tradition

You earn a very small amount of interest when you let banks hang onto your money, and bankers contend that letting crypto platforms pay you more just for holding stablecoins would throw the U.S. economy into danger.

That argument may have contributed to fatally derailing the Senate's Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Even after a high-profile bipartisan compromise months back, bank lobbyists pushed their worries back into the forefront earlier this month, just in time to help knock over the already teetering legislation. Still, the destiny of U.S. stablecoin yield isn't yet resolved.

While the bill's section that goes after President Donald Trump's personal business ties to crypto has drawn the most fervent attention, the Clarity Act's revisions on stablecoin yield were what threw the bill off course early this year, and the banks haven't stopped arguing that crypto firms may try to offer stablecoin rewards that imitate interest on bank deposits and by extension threaten the role of banks and imperil U.S. lending.