President Donald Trump has called on major banks to end efforts that he says are weakening the digital asset industry and instead work with crypto companies to advance major market-structuring legislation, the CLARITY Act.
In a statement on Social Truth on Tuesday, the US commander-in-chief stated that the US must move quickly to secure its position in the global crypto race and that reforming the market structure is essential to provide transparency for companies and investors and to preserve the industry in America.
It is seen as Trump’s toughest intervention in the ongoing impasse that has stalled progress on comprehensive regulation of digital assets.
The controversy centers around the question of whether exchanges, including Coinbase and Kraken, can provide interest-like benefits to stablecoin balances.
The banking lobby claims that allowing crypto platforms to pay competitive returns on stablecoin deposits would cause a significant flight of deposits from traditional savings accounts and potentially destabilize a key pillar of the traditional financial system.
Crypto supporters argue that such restrictions are aimed at protectionism to protect banks from legitimate competition and say that American consumers deserve access to a higher return on their assets.
The GENIUS Act, which Trump signed last July, established the first comprehensive federal framework for stablecoin issuers, setting basic standards for backing reserves and banning direct interest payments to token holders.
However, the legislation left a significant loophole over whether third-party platforms could offer yields through alternative mechanisms, a loophole that both cryptocurrency exchanges and their banking rivals have spent months grappling with.
The Clarity Act seeks to address this ambiguity by establishing market structure rules that define asset classifications and delineate regulatory authority between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The House of Representatives passed the measure on July 17, 2025 with overwhelming bipartisan support by a vote of 294-134. However, the legislation languished in the Senate, where the banking industry’s concerns among lawmakers about disrupting established financial institutions found receptive ears.
A deadline set by the White House to reach a deal on the stablecoin crop has passed without resolution, adding to the growing uncertainty over whether a deal will be struck before the looming midterm elections, injecting additional political instability into the process.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency added another layer of complexity in late February when it proposed rules on limits on indirect payments for stablecoin customers.
