CLARITY Act stablecoin yield language nears compromise in Senate talks
US lawmakers are advancing the CLARITY Act market-structure bill, but the key bottleneck is the “stablecoin yield” language—whether platforms can pay rewards on stablecoins without the payout being treated like bank interest. After late-week, second-round meetings with Senate staff, traders report the dispute is nearing a workable compromise, though the newest draft text has not been fully disclosed.
Industry groups reviewed the latest language on Thursday, while banks briefed it on Friday. Multiple anonymous sources from both sides said they are “hopeful” a solution is within reach. The compromise follows strong pushback to a late-March version that reportedly banned any stablecoin rewards, directly or indirectly, including anything “economically or functionally equivalent” to interest—an approach major firms such as Coinbase and Stripe opposed.
Legislative timing is still unclear. With the Senate on Easter break, the Senate Banking Committee may release final stablecoin yield language ahead of an intended late-April markup, or it could slip. Senator Tim Scott said work on DeFi, tokenization, and token classification can continue if the stablecoin yield issue is deprioritized. The bill has already passed the House and advanced through the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Neutral
A potential stablecoin yield compromise reduces the risk of a harsh, blanket reward ban, which should lower near-term regulatory uncertainty. However, the bill still aims to tightly restrict rewards so they don’t resemble bank interest, and final timing may slip due to congressional calendar constraints. Overall, this is more likely to stabilize expectations than to trigger a clear directional move for stablecoins in the short term; longer-term impact depends on how regulators ultimately define permissible “activity-based” rewards and which programs qualify after the SEC/CFTC/Treasury rulemaking window.