President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused the banking industry of holding up landmark cryptocurrency legislation, writing on social media that Wall Street firms “need to make a good deal with the Crypto Industry” to unstick a pending digital asset bill in the Senate.
His post comes as White House officials are working to resolve a lobbying spat between the banking and crypto sectors over whether digital asset exchanges should be able to offer rewards programs that pay yield to users who hold dollar-pegged digital tokens known as stablecoins. The dispute has stalled pending crypto market structure legislation in the Senate.
“The Banks are hitting record profits, and we are not going to allow them to undermine our powerful Crypto Agenda that will end up going to China, and other Countries if we don’t get The Clarity Act taken care of,” he said, referring to the market structure bill, which would establish a new regulatory framework favorable to crypto companies.
Trump’s post is a win for the crypto industry, which is fighting against a lobbying effort by the banking industry to bar any type of yield payments on stablecoins. He effectively sided with the crypto industry’s position, writing that “Americans should earn more money on their money” — a line that crypto executives have used to argue in favor of their rewards programs. Banks warn that allowing consumers to earn yield on stablecoins could spark deposit flight from traditional financial institutions and threaten lending.
Despite Trump’s new position, the stalled market structure bill likely still does not have the votes to advance in the Senate without a resolution to the stablecoin yield fight that banks are satisfied with.
The talks over the issue, which are being mediated by White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt, have dragged on past an unofficial March 1 deadline by which administration officials hoped to resolve the dispute. The White House convened a series of meetings featuring representatives from the two industries, but an agreement has remained elusive.
“The U.S. needs to get Market Structure done, ASAP,” Trump wrote.
He also said a previously signed law dubbed the GENIUS Act, which created new rules for how stablecoins are regulated, “is being threatened and undermined by the Banks, and that is unacceptable — We are not going to allow it.”
The crypto industry “cannot be taken from the People of America when it is so close to becoming truly successful,” he wrote.
