Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks have finalized a bipartisan compromise on stablecoin rewards, removing the biggest obstacle to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act and clearing a path toward Senate Banking Committee markup.
The new text blocks payouts that function like bank deposit interest while preserving rewards tied to genuine platform activity. Coinbase executives publicly endorsed the outcome and urged the broader bill to advance.
Compromise Bans Bank-Like Stablecoin Yield
The agreement prohibits rewards offered “in a manner that is economically or functionally equivalent to the payment of interest or yield on an interest-bearing bank deposit.”
Stablecoin balances can still factor into reward calculations if they pass that equivalence test.
The bill instructs federal regulators to draft a stablecoin disclosure framework and publish a list of permissible reward activities.
That guidance will determine how exchanges and brokers structure customer incentives, building on the Senate fight over what counts as activity-based participation.
Senate Banking is expected to schedule a markup as early as the week of May 11. Polymarket traders price the probability of the CLARITY Act being signed into law this year at 68%, after a missed deadline and concentrated bank-lobby pressure on Tillis.
Coinbase Calls Outcome a Win for Crypto
Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said the months of meetings produced text that should not derail the broader bill, arguing public debate had overstated the actual risks.
“This outcome preserves activity-based rewards tied to real participation on crypto platforms and networks, which is what the bank lobby said they wanted,” he wrote in a post.
Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase’s chief policy officer, separately credited progress on token classification, DeFi safe harbors, and tokenization in the broader deal.
With yield resolved, attention shifts to jurisdictional clarity between the SEC and CFTC, staking protections, and capital formation rules.
These provisions holding through floor consideration will shape the timeline into summer.
