Overview
- Senators are preparing a revised CLARITY Act that would prohibit passive yield on stablecoins while allowing narrowly defined activity-based rewards.
- The plan would redefine stablecoins as payment tools and direct regulators to spell out permitted incentives and anti-evasion rules within a year.
- Analysts at 10x Research say the rules could curb trading volumes, liquidity, and token demand for DeFi platforms such as Uniswap, Aave, dYdX, Sushi, and Compound.
- The framework is expected to favor regulated issuers like Circle by pulling returns back toward banks and money market products.
- The Senate draft also extends anti‑money‑laundering obligations to parts of DeFi and has drawn pushback, with Coinbase coordinating a counterproposal and a new Blockchain Leadership Fund PAC stepping up lobbying.