
The room at the Marriott Marquis in Washington was full of community bankers on Tuesday, and Senator Angela Alsobrooks walked straight into the lion's den. Speaking at the American Bankers Association's annual Washington Summit, the Maryland Democrat delivered a message neither side particularly wanted to hear: everyone involved in the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act is going to have to walk away a little bit unhappy.
It was a remarkably candid thing to say in front of 1,400 people who have spent the better part of three months trying to kill the very provision that's been holding up the bill. But Alsobrooks, along with Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, is now the central figure in a late-stage push to get the Clarity Act off the Senate Banking Committee floor and into an actual markup hearing before the legislative window closes for good.
The two senators confirmed Tuesday they're actively working on compromise language around stablecoin yield which keeps coming up as the main issue that has stalled what was supposed to be a landmark piece of crypto regulation.
A Bill In Limbo
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, or CLARITY Act, was supposed to have its Senate Banking Committee markup in January. That session got pulled at the last minute. The reason was stablecoin yield, specifically, amendments co-sponsored by Alsobrooks and Tillis that would restrict crypto firms from offering interest-like returns to customers who simply hold dollar-pegged digital tokens like USDC or USDT.
Banks had been lobbying hard against any provision that allowed that kind of reward. Their argument, which they've pushed loudly and repeatedly, is that stablecoins offering yield would function like bank accounts without the regulatory obligations of bank accounts. Executives at JPMorgan and Bank of America have cited Treasury Department modeling that suggested banks could lose up to $6.6 trillion in deposits if stablecoin yield programs went mainstream. Their argument is that it would starve the lending market and ultimately destabilize smaller regional banks that are particularly dependent on deposit funding.
The crypto industry dismisses most of that as fearmongering. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called out the banking lobby publicly for what he characterized as anticompetitive blocking tactics and has pulled his support for the bill. In January at Davos, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon reportedly told Armstrong he was, in quite colorful terms, wrong. The anecdote leaked out and became something of a symbol for just how personal this fight had gotten.
"We absolutely have to have these protections to prevent the deposit flight, but we're going to probably have to make some compromises." — Senator Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md.
The White House Steps In, Then Gets Rejected
By late February, the White House had grown impatient. Administration officials spent weeks brokering what they hoped would be an acceptable middle ground: allow stablecoin yield in limited contexts, particularly for activity tied to payments and transactions, while banning rewards on idle balances that look more like savings accounts. Crypto firms signed off on the framework. The banks did not.
On March 3rd, President Trump went public with his frustration. In a Truth Social post, he wrote that banks should not be trying to undercut the GENIUS Act or hold the CLARITY Act hostage, a shot across the bow that was notable both for its directness and for the fact that it did essentially nothing to move the American Bankers Association. Two days later, the ABA formally rejected the White House compromise anyway.
The March 1st deadline the White House had set for a resolution passed without published compromise text. Prediction markets, which had briefly priced Clarity Act passage at around 80% odds, fell back toward 55% as the stalemate hardened.
What the ABA rejection didn't do, however, is kill the legislation outright. Congress has passed bills over banking lobby opposition before. The question, as analysts and lobbyists have been pointing out all week, is whether there are enough Senate votes to do it again — and whether the calendar allows the time to find out.
Can We Get A Compromise?
The emerging deal that Alsobrooks and Tillis are proposing is a slimmed-down version of what the White House tried. Under the framework being discussed, yield on stablecoin holdings that closely resemble bank deposits would remain prohibited. But rewards tied to specific activities, like using stablecoins for payments or transactions on a given platform, could remain eligible for some form of customer incentive.
Both senators and many crypto advocates actually agree on the premise that pure holding rewards that look and function like savings account interest are a problem. The dispute is over where exactly to draw the line and how to define the categories well enough that neither side can game them after the fact.
Cody Carbone, the CEO of the Digital Chamber, said this week that Tillis has been very receptive to discussions about stablecoin yield and that he's optimistic the industry can get to yes on the bill. Summer Mersinger, the CEO of the Blockchain Association, noted that the White House weighing in on the negotiations and pushing banks to engage in good faith adds important momentum as talks continue.
The banks have maintained, publicly at least, that those assurances aren't enough. Their representatives at the ABA summit this week underlined again what they see as the risks of any yield loophole to their business model. The question of whether a markup hearing happens in late March or gets delayed again, depends entirely on whether Alsobrooks and Tillis can produce language the committee will actually vote on.
Timing Is An Issue
Behind every conversation about the Clarity Act this week is an unspoken anxiety about time. The Senate calendar is tight. Midterm elections are in November, and lawmakers will start dispersing from meaningful legislating sometime around May or June as campaign season accelerates. Unfortunately it seems, Congress prefers to stop working as they try to convince voters to keep them in their jobs. I know, makes perfect sense. If a markup isn't held and a floor vote isn't scheduled by sometime in April, realistically the bill is looking at the next Congress which could be a completely different party in power. And complicating things even more. Despite which party ends up winning the midterms, this could mean another 12 to 18 months of regulatory uncertainty for an industry that has been waiting years for a clear legal framework.
That timeline matters not just for the crypto industry's domestic ambitions, but for its competitive positioning globally. Under the European Union's MiCA framework, stablecoin yield products that are restricted or banned in the U.S. are already legal in European jurisdictions. Coinbase and others have been explicit about the risk that continued regulatory ambiguity in the U.S. will push capital, talent, and product development offshore. Trump made a version of the same argument in his Truth Social post last week, warning that failure would drive the industry to China.
There's also a strategic Bitcoin Reserve angle sitting quietly in the background. According to people familiar with the situation, the Trump administration has determined it needs congressional action to operationalize the planned Strategic Bitcoin Reserve that the president signed an executive order for over a year ago. That creates at least some White House motivation to see the broader Clarity Act process succeed.
What Happens Next
The Senate Banking Committee is targeting a late-March markup. Whether that happens depends on whether the Alsobrooks-Tillis compromise language satisfies enough members to call the vote. If it does, the bill would then need to be merged with a version that already passed the Senate Agriculture Committee on a party-line vote in late 2025. The combined text would require significant Democratic support to clear a full Senate vote, always a tall ask in the current politcal environment and the fact that seven Democratic senators have separately raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest involving senior government officials, including the president himself, who have financial ties to the crypto industry.
Even if the Senate acts, the bill still needs the House, where an earlier version of the CLARITY Act passed committee last year but has yet to reach the floor. The path to a signed law before November is narrow but not impossible. It requires the Senate Banking Committee to move in the next few weeks, the combined bill to hold together politically, and a Senate floor schedule that is packed with little wiggle room.
For the moment, all of it hinges on two senators and a room full of bankers in Washington D.C., trying to decide how much compromise is actually compromise and if they can all agree to leave a bit unhappy about the results for the greater good. Typically the best compromises do make both sides a bit unhappy. In Washington, that usually means the deal is closer than it looks. It also usually means it's harder than it sounds.

Cardano has spent years building its technology stack, refining its proof of stake model, and emphasizing academic rigor. But for all that work, one problem has stubbornly remained. Liquidity.
That gap is now front and center as Cardano moves toward integrating USDCx, a Circle-backed stablecoin product designed to extend USDC liquidity across multiple blockchains. The hope is straightforward. Bring real dollar liquidity onto Cardano, and decentralized finance on the network finally has a chance to scale.
The announcement, confirmed by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, signals a shift in priorities. Less focus on theory, more focus on the things the matter.
In modern crypto markets, stablecoins are the grease that keeps everything moving. They anchor trading pairs, support lending markets, and give institutions a familiar unit of account. Without them, DeFi ecosystems struggle to attract capital, market makers stay away, and activity remains thin.
Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem has felt those constraints for years. While Ethereum, Solana, and newer Layer 2 networks handle billions in stablecoin flows daily, Cardano’s on-chain dollar liquidity remains modest. That imbalance shows up in lower trading volumes, wider spreads, and limited options for builders trying to launch serious financial products.
USDCx is meant to change that dynamic.
USDCx is not just another wrapped stablecoin. It is part of Circle’s broader effort to make USDC available across multiple chains without relying on fragile bridges. Instead of locking tokens on one chain and issuing synthetic versions on another, USDCx uses Circle’s own reserve and minting infrastructure to represent USDC liquidity elsewhere.
In practice, that means Cardano applications could eventually tap into the same deep pool of USDC liquidity that already exists across major networks. Even a small slice of that capital could materially alter Cardano’s DeFi landscape.
Importantly, USDCx does not need to be fully native on day one to matter. Access, settlement reliability, and institutional trust are what count.
The push toward USDCx fits into a broader realization within the Cardano ecosystem. Strong consensus design alone does not create a financial network. Liquidity, tooling, and incentives do.
Recent proposals and discussions around ecosystem funding reflect that shift. There is growing acknowledgment that Cardano needs to invest directly in stablecoin access, custody integrations, oracle services, and market infrastructure if it wants to compete for capital.
Hoskinson himself has framed the move as necessary rather than optional. In today’s crypto market, liquidity begets liquidity. Without a credible dollar backbone, everything else struggles to gain traction. The move follows the recent ecosystem proposal to bring these tier-one stables coins, custody providers, bridges, and oracles needed for a healthy ecosystem.
Technical integration is still underway, and Cardano is not yet listed as a fully supported chain in Circle’s production documentation. Even once live, adoption will depend on whether major Cardano-native applications choose to build around USDCx and whether liquidity providers see enough opportunity to deploy capital.
There is also a cautionary lesson from other networks. Stablecoin availability alone does not magically create a thriving DeFi ecosystem. Several chains have added major stablecoins in the past only to see limited follow-through from users and developers.
Liquidity needs reasons to stay.
USDCx is part of a bigger trend in crypto. Stablecoin issuers are moving away from simple token issuance and toward infrastructure that supports interoperability, compliance, and institutional use.
Some versions of USDCx are being designed with privacy features that allow transaction details to remain hidden while still meeting regulatory requirements. That combination is increasingly attractive to institutions that want blockchain efficiency without full transparency.
If Cardano can position itself as a secure, compliant, and liquid environment for decentralized finance, USDCx could become a meaningful piece of that strategy.
Cardano’s bet on USDCx is not about hype or short-term price action. It is about fixing a structural weakness that has limited the network’s financial relevance.
If Cardano, through the USDCx integration, captured even 0.10% of that notional liquidity, it would imply an additional $70 million in dollar value, which is roughly double the network’s current stablecoin base.
Should that share reach 0.25%, the figure would rise to approximately $180 million. Such a shift could materially tighten spreads for ADA/stablecoin trading pairs and make lending markets more viable for institutional participants.
If the integration succeeds and if developers and liquidity providers follow, Cardano could finally begin to close the gap with more capital-rich ecosystems.
For now, the message is clear. Cardano is done pretending liquidity does not matter.

After years on the sidelines of the U.S. regulatory system, Tether is stepping directly into it.
On January 27, the issuer behind the world’s largest stablecoin unveiled USAT, a new dollar-backed token designed specifically for the American market. Unlike USDT, which has long operated globally with limited U.S. regulatory footing, USAT is built from the ground up to comply with federal rules, and it is being issued through Anchorage Digital Bank, the only federally chartered crypto bank in the country.
The launch marks a turning point for Tether, a company that has historically thrived outside the U.S. regulatory perimeter, and signals how dramatically the stablecoin landscape has shifted over the past two years.
USAT is a one-to-one dollar-pegged stablecoin, but the similarities to USDT largely stop there.
The token is structured under the GENIUS Act, the U.S. stablecoin law passed in 2025 that finally gave issuers a clear federal framework to operate within. Under the law, stablecoins must be fully reserved, issued through regulated entities, and subject to ongoing oversight and reporting requirements.
Anchorage Digital Bank is the official issuer of USAT, placing the token squarely inside the U.S. banking system. Anchorage operates under a federal charter and is overseen by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which gives USAT a regulatory status that few crypto-native assets have ever enjoyed.
For institutions that have spent years waiting on regulatory clarity before touching stablecoins, that distinction matters.
For most of its history, USDT dominated stablecoin markets outside the United States, while rivals like USDC carved out regulated footholds domestically. As U.S. policy remained uncertain, Tether focused overseas. That calculus changed once Washington created a formal stablecoin regime.
USAT gives Tether a compliant entry point into the U.S. financial system without forcing changes to USDT itself. Instead of retrofitting an existing global product, the company opted to launch something new, with a different issuer, different governance, and a different regulatory posture.
In effect, Tether now runs two stablecoin tracks. One optimized for global liquidity and another designed for American institutions.
Anchorage’s involvement goes beyond branding.
As issuer, the bank is responsible for compliance, custody, and operational controls. That includes AML and KYC processes, reserve management, and ongoing reporting obligations. These are not optional features under the GENIUS Act. They are baseline requirements.
USAT’s reserves are held in U.S. dollar-denominated assets and overseen by Cantor Fitzgerald, which serves as custodian and preferred primary dealer. Cantor’s role adds another layer of institutional familiarity, particularly for traditional financial firms that already interact with the firm in Treasury and fixed-income markets.
Taken together, the structure is clearly aimed at banks, asset managers, and corporate treasury teams rather than purely crypto-native users.
Tether has also made a notable leadership choice for USAT.
The company appointed Bo Hines as CEO of the USAT unit. Hines previously served as executive director of the White House’s Crypto Council, giving him direct experience navigating U.S. policy discussions at the highest level. He was directly involved with GENIUS Act legislation.
That background reflects the broader message Tether is sending with USAT. This is not a product built to push regulatory boundaries. It is designed to operate comfortably inside them.
At launch, the token will be available on several major trading platforms and payment gateways, including Kraken, OKX, Bybit, Crypto.com, and MoonPay. Noticeably absent from that list is Coinbase. The US's largest exchange has a long partnership history with Circle and USDC, by far Tether's largest competitor. It will be interesting to see if they list the new stablecoin in the future. The early distribution provides liquidity from day one, though the longer-term focus appears to be institutional usage rather than retail trading volume.
The token is expected to be used for payments, settlement, and treasury operations, particularly by firms that want exposure to stablecoins without regulatory ambiguity.
USAT adds another serious competitor to the regulated stablecoin field, which until now has been dominated by a small number of issuers.
For Circle and other U.S.-focused stablecoin providers, Tether’s entry raises the stakes. Tether brings unmatched scale, deep liquidity, and years of operational experience. At the same time, it is entering a market where regulatory compliance is no longer a differentiator but a requirement. Competition is always welcome, and Tether is providing that.
Tether’s USAT is more than just another stablecoin.
It represents a strategic shift by one of crypto’s most influential companies toward direct engagement with U.S. regulators, banks, and institutions. By launching a federally regulated product rather than modifying USDT, Tether has effectively separated its global operations from its American ambitions.
Whether USAT gains the same dominance in the U.S. that USDT enjoys globally remains to be seen. But one thing is clear. The era of stablecoins operating in regulatory gray zones is ending, and Tether intends to be part of what comes next. This is an amazing time to be involved in the blockchain and stablecoin space. The tides are turning and I think we will see exciting times ahead for adoption.

Bermuda is taking a swing that very few governments have even talked about seriously, let alone tried.
The island nation says it wants to move large parts of its economy directly onto public blockchains, using stablecoins and crypto infrastructure instead of the traditional banking and payments stack. To do that, it has teamed up with Coinbase and Circle, two of the most established companies in the industry.
This is not a pilot tucked away in a sandbox. The ambition here is much bigger. Bermuda wants onchain rails to support real economic activity, the kind that happens every day, not just crypto trading.
Whether that actually works is still an open question. But the fact that a government is trying at all is notable.
Bermuda did not wake up one morning and decide to put its economy onchain.
For years, the island has been quietly building a reputation as a place where crypto companies can operate without constantly guessing how regulators will react. The rules are clear. Licensing exists. Enforcement is predictable. That alone puts Bermuda ahead of many much larger jurisdictions.
Coinbase and Circle both set up regulated operations there long before this announcement. In some ways, this new initiative looks like the next logical step rather than a sudden leap.
Officials describe it as modernization. Fewer intermediaries, faster settlement, and lower costs. In plain terms, they think the financial plumbing can work better.
Coinbase is mostly about infrastructure here.
Think wallets, compliance tooling, and the systems that make it possible for people and businesses to interact with blockchains without needing to understand every technical detail. Coinbase has spent years building that stack, and Bermuda wants to plug into it.
Circle’s role is more straightforward. It issues USDC, the dollar backed stablecoin that would act as the money moving through this onchain system. The appeal is obvious. Prices do not swing wildly, and payments can move quickly without touching legacy rails.
Together, they provide something that looks less like an experiment and more like a functioning financial system, at least on paper.
None of this happens without regulation that is already in place.
Bermuda’s digital asset laws spell out what exchanges, issuers, and custodians can and cannot do. That sounds boring, but it matters. It gives companies confidence to build, and it gives the government leverage to enforce standards.
In a global crypto landscape still shaped by uncertainty and court cases, that kind of clarity stands out.
For Bermuda, regulation is not about keeping crypto at arm’s length. It is about making it usable at scale.
There have already been small but meaningful trials.
Last year, local residents were given stablecoins to spend at participating merchants during a digital finance event. People bought meals, paid for services, and moved money using wallets and QR codes. It was not perfect, but it worked well enough to get attention.
Merchants got paid quickly. Users did not have to think too hard about what was happening under the hood. For policymakers, that mattered more than transaction volume.
Those early trials helped turn a concept into something more concrete.
Bermuda’s approach is anchored in what The Hon. E. David Burt, JP, MP, Premier of Bermuda describes as a collaborative model between government, regulator, and industry designed to enable responsible innovation at scale.
“Bermuda has always believed that responsible innovation is best achieved through partnership between government, regulators, and industry, with the support of Circle and Coinbase, two of the world’s most trusted digital finance companies, we are accelerating our vision to enable digital finance at the national level. This initiative is about creating opportunity, lowering costs, and ensuring Bermudians benefit from the future of finance.”
Strip away the buzzwords and this comes down to payments.
Small economies often pay more to move money, especially across borders. Stablecoins promise faster settlement and fewer fees, which can make a real difference for local businesses and government operations alike.
If onchain payments become normal in Bermuda, that alone would be a meaningful shift. Everything else, tokenization, smart contracts, broader digital asset services, comes later.
Bermuda is small, and that is part of the advantage.
Rolling out new systems is easier when you are not dealing with hundreds of millions of people and layers of bureaucracy. But success on a small island still sends a signal.
If this works, it shows that stablecoins can operate inside a regulated national framework without blowing things up. It also raises uncomfortable questions for countries that are still debating whether crypto belongs anywhere near their financial systems.
Other governments are paying attention, even if they are not saying much yet.
Adoption is not automatic.
People need to trust the tools they are using. Businesses need to see clear benefits. Regulators need to keep up as technology and global standards change. Any one of those things can slow momentum.
There is also the question of what happens when onchain systems meet real economic stress, not just controlled pilots and conferences.
That test has not happened yet.
For most of crypto’s history, the industry has talked about changing finance while mostly building parallel systems that sit off to the side.
Bermuda is trying something different. It is asking whether blockchain infrastructure can simply become part of how an economy runs, quietly and without much fanfare.
It might work. It might not.
Either way, it pushes the conversation forward in a way few announcements do.

Circle, the company behind the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin, has unveiled Arc, an open Layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for stablecoin finance. This move isn’t just another blockchain launch — it’s a signal that crypto infrastructure is maturing and evolving toward real-world use cases that matter: payments, tokenisation, and global financial connectivity.
Arc is engineered from the ground up to power stablecoin transactions and on-chain finance with speed, predictability, and regulatory readiness.
Here’s what makes it stand out:
USDC as gas: Arc uses USDC as its native gas token, so fees are stable and predictable. No more dealing with volatile gas prices in native tokens.
EVM compatible: Developers can build using familiar Ethereum tools, making migration and integration easy.
Enterprise ready: Arc offers sub-second settlement times, privacy-optional transactions, and infrastructure that supports large-scale, compliant use cases.
On-chain FX and settlement: A built-in foreign exchange engine enables seamless conversion between stablecoins and tokenised assets.
In essence, Arc aims to serve as the “settlement layer” for digital dollars, tokenised securities, and other real-world assets. This is where blockchain moves from speculation to real utility.
Arc isn’t launching into a vacuum — it’s already attracting interest from some of the biggest names in finance and technology. BlackRock, Visa, and Anthropic are reportedly participating in its public testnet, and over 100 institutions are expected to onboard through Circle’s ecosystem.
The blockchain will also launch with Fireblocks support from day one, giving banks, asset managers, and fintechs enterprise-grade custody and tokenisation tools immediately.
This level of institutional engagement marks an important milestone for crypto. For years, traditional finance has tested blockchain in controlled pilots. Now, with Arc, we’re seeing real deployment at scale.
Stablecoins are becoming the bridge between traditional finance and crypto. USDC alone has grown more than 90 percent year over year, reaching over 61 billion dollars in circulation.
Arc positions Circle to lead the next phase of that growth. Instead of depending solely on third-party chains, Circle is building a dedicated network optimised for compliance, speed, and interoperability. By doing this, Circle strengthens the entire crypto ecosystem — offering a foundation for payments, DeFi, and tokenised assets that regulators and enterprises can trust.
This is exactly the kind of infrastructure crypto has needed to move beyond speculation and into mainstream adoption.
Arc represents a clear vote of confidence in blockchain’s long-term potential. It shows that crypto companies are not just launching new tokens or apps — they’re building the next-generation financial rails.
A growing number of global financial and technology leaders are exploring Arc, Circle’s new blockchain network. Traditional finance heavyweights such as State Street, Deutsche Bank, Invesco, and Société Générale are among the participants, alongside digital asset pioneers like Coinbase and Kraken, fintech innovators Nuvei and Brex, and global tech providers AWS and Mastercard.
Visa is using the Arc testnet to explore how stablecoin-backed payment infrastructure could accelerate cross-border money movement. BlackRock’s head of digital assets, Robert Mitchnick, said the firm is examining how Arc’s built-in support for stablecoin settlement and on-chain FX could “unlock additional utility” for capital markets.
Invesco is studying how blockchain can make tokenized funds more efficient, while Société Générale is testing programmable settlement and enhanced transparency for cross-border capital flows. HSBC, one of the world’s largest banks, is assessing Arc’s potential to deliver faster and more transparent international payments.
State Street is focused on digital asset custody integrations, and SBI Holdings is evaluating how regulated financial services might extend into on-chain environments. Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, and First Abu Dhabi Bank are also participating, highlighting the growing interest from major global banking networks in blockchain-based settlement infrastructure.
Yes, there are risks. Governance, adoption, and regulatory clarity will shape Arc’s success. But the overall direction is undeniably positive.
Circle’s decision to build Arc demonstrates confidence in blockchain’s staying power. It’s a statement that crypto isn’t just here to disrupt — it’s here to rebuild finance from the ground up, better, faster, and more connected than ever.
Arc could mark the beginning of a new chapter for blockchain. By combining stablecoin stability, institutional trust, and modern chain design, Circle is creating a system that brings crypto closer to the real economy.
If Arc’s testnet launch in fall 2025 delivers on its promise, it won’t just be a milestone for Circle — it will be a breakthrough moment for the entire blockchain and crypto industry.
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