Trump is pushing banks to make deals with crypto firms over market structure bill
President Donald Trump has called on major banks to stop efforts that he says are weakening the digital assets industry and instead work with crypto firms to advance a key market structure law, the CLARITY Act.
In a statement by Truth Social on Tuesday, the US commander in chief asserted that the US must move quickly to protect its position in the global crypto competition and that a change in market structure is essential to provide clarity for companies and investors while keeping the industry anchored in America.
This is seen as Trump’s toughest intervention yet in an ongoing situation that has stalled progress on comprehensive digital asset regulation.
The controversy centers on the question of whether exchanges, including Coinbase and Kraken, can offer interest-like returns on stablecoin balances.
The banking lobby argues that allowing crypto platforms to pay competitive returns on stablecoin deposits would result in significant deposits from traditional savings accounts, potentially disrupting the mainstay of the mainstream financial system.
Crypto advocates argue that such restrictions amount to safeguards designed to protect banks from legitimate competition, arguing that American consumers deserve a higher return on their money.
The GENIUS Act, which Trump signed last July, established the first comprehensive government framework for stablecoin issuers, setting basic standards for reserve backing and prohibiting direct interest payments to token holders.
However, the law left an important loophole by not clearly considering that third-party platforms can provide yield in other ways, a loophole that both crypto exchanges and their banking rivals have spent months fighting.
The Clarity Act is intended to resolve this ambiguity while establishing market structure rules that define the classification of assets and define regulatory powers between the Industry and Commerce Commission and the 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 has lost power in the Senate, where the concerns of the banking industry have found listening ears among lawmakers who are wary of interfering with established financial institutions.
A deadline set by the White House to reach an agreement on the stablecoin yield question ended without a solution, contributing to increased uncertainty about whether a deal can be reached before the midterm elections approach and inject more 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 specifying limits on indirect yield payments to stablecoin customers.
