A bill meant to bring order to the US crypto market is stuck in Congress, caught between two powerful groups that cannot agree on one key question: should stablecoins be allowed to pay interest?
Banks And Crypto In A Legislative Standoff
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 — known as the CLARITY Act — was drafted to establish rules for how crypto assets are classified and overseen in the US. But the bill hit a wall after Coinbase and other crypto companies publicly opposed earlier versions of it.
Among their objections: the bill would ban yield-bearing stablecoins. Banks, for their part, have pushed hard to keep that ban in place.
Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina has been working on a revised draft aimed at satisfying both sides, but reports say it has already drawn pushback and has yet to be released publicly.
The standoff reflects a deeper anxiety in the banking industry — one that a senior Moody’s analyst says may be premature, at least for now.
Analyst from Moody’s agency states that stablecoins do not pose a threat to banks in the near future. #stablecoin#crypto pic.twitter.com/jP8aB5uN1r
— CryptOpus (@ImCryptOpus) April 20, 2026
Near-Term Risk Remains Low, Analyst Says
Abhi Srivastava, associate vice president at Moody’s Investors Service Digital Economy Group, said that the threat stablecoins pose to traditional banks is limited at this point in the adoption cycle.
The US already has payment systems that are fast, low-cost, and trusted, he said, which reduces the appeal of stablecoin-based alternatives for everyday transactions.
According to Srivastava, the current legal prohibition on stablecoins paying yield is a key reason they are unlikely to pull deposits away from banks at any meaningful scale in the near term.
Still, stablecoin use is not standing still. Data shows the total market cap for stablecoins crossed $300 billion by the end of last year — a figure that reflects growing use in payments, cross-border commerce, and onchain finance.
Tokenized real-world assets, which represent physical or traditional financial assets on a blockchain, are also expanding alongside them.
A Longer-Term Pressure Building
Srivastava acknowledged that the picture could shift over time. As both stablecoins and tokenized assets grow in size and use, banks could begin to feel the pressure — through deposit outflows and reduced capacity to lend.
That is not happening today, but it is the scenario the banking lobby appears to be preparing for.
Some voices in the crypto industry are warning that failure to pass the CLARITY Act could leave the sector exposed to crackdowns from less-friendly regulators down the road.
That adds urgency to negotiations that have so far produced little progress. Both sides say they want a deal.
Getting there is another matter.
Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView
