Overview
- The Senate Banking Committee canceled the planned markup and set no new date, stalling the CLARITY market‑structure bill.
- The draft would bar platforms from paying interest for simply holding stablecoins while permitting activity‑based incentives such as payments, liquidity provision, staking or governance.
- Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong rejected the draft as worse than the status quo, citing prospective limits on stablecoin rewards, concerns over DeFi and privacy, and a shift in authority toward the SEC over the CFTC.
- Banking groups pressed for broader prohibitions that extend to exchanges and affiliates, warning of deposit flight, while JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum cautioned that yield-bearing stablecoins risk a parallel banking system.
- The legislation also seeks to divide crypto oversight between the SEC and CFTC, but ongoing negotiations and potential tightening amendments leave the bill’s timing and final shape uncertain.