The biggest winners from the Clarity Act may not be crypto companies at all. They may be banks. That is the core argument in a CoinDesk opinion column by Alex Tapscott, CEO of CMCC Global Capital Markets, published as the U.S. Senate could move as soon as today to take up the bill.
Tapscott writes that the Clarity Act would establish a federal framework for cryptoassets and define oversight for exchanges, brokers, issuers, and other intermediaries. In his telling, the bill reaches beyond crypto policy. If done properly, he says, it could help build a more innovative, inclusive, and competitive U.S. financial system.
Bank concerns center on stablecoin competition
According to the column, that prospect has unsettled parts of the banking industry. For months, the American Bankers Association and other banking groups have warned that the Clarity Act could hand crypto companies an unfair competitive advantage by allowing them to offer stablecoin users rewards that function like interest on deposits.
Bankers argue that money could move out of bank accounts and into stablecoins, reducing the deposit base banks use to finance mortgages, farms, and small businesses. Tapscott describes that narrative as dramatic: crypto expands, community banks weaken, and Main Street loses access to credit.
He says the evidence is much less dramatic. The GENIUS Act, he notes, already prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest or yield directly to holders. The remaining dispute, in his account, is about rewards offered through exchanges, affiliates, and other intermediaries. Stablecoins could displace some deposits as they spread, he writes, but the claim that they threaten the foundation of American banking does not fit the available evidence.
Data cited in the article
Tapscott cites an estimate from the White House Council of Economic Advisers saying that banning stablecoin yield would increase aggregate bank lending by just 0.02% under baseline assumptions. For community banks, the estimated increase was 0.026%. He also says other empirical research found no material impact from stablecoin adoption on community bank deposits.
At the same time, the column does not dismiss the issue entirely. Tapscott says there are legitimate questions about how a much larger stablecoin market could affect bank funding and financial stability, and that policymakers should take those questions seriously. His point is that regulation should respond proportionately, rather than shield incumbents from competition.
A political alignment he calls unusual
Tapscott argues that the politics around the Clarity Act have taken on an unusual shape. He writes that progressives who spent years criticizing too-big-to-fail institutions are now defending those institutions’ competitive moat. Republicans who have historically supported open markets, he adds, now appear open to limiting crypto entrants because they might compete too effectively with banks.
In his view, that gets the issue backwards. He says banks themselves may have the most to gain from clearer legislation.
No single Wall Street position against the bill
The column says there is no unified Wall Street opposition to the Clarity Act. Tapscott names BlackRock, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, and others as supporters. He says those firms recognize that blockchain is moving quickly into the financial system itself.
He points to an announcement on Sept. 1 from a group of 21 financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citi, and Deutsche Bank, which said they plan to form a company that will issue a U.S. dollar stablecoin, with a launch targeted for the first half of 2027.
Why banks may prefer legislation to regulatory shifts
Without the Clarity Act, Tapscott argues, digital asset policy will keep depending on the posture of regulators and presidential administrations. Rules could move one way and then the other. What one regulator permits, a successor could prohibit.
For banks weighing multibillion-dollar investments in tokenized deposits, stablecoins, custody, trading, and infrastructure, he says that uncertainty should be more troubling than the prospect of competing with fintech startups.
As an example, he points to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. In August, the agency granted preliminary approval to World Liberty Trust Company, which is affiliated with the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial, only seven months after the company filed its application. Tapscott says the unusually fast process has raised questions about political influence.
Whatever one thinks of that case, he writes, it illustrates a broader issue. If Congress does not legislate, regulators will keep making consequential decisions about the structure of finance. A future administration could push policy in the opposite direction just as easily. Banks entering digital assets, he says, should prefer durable legislation approved by Congress over rules that can swing every four years.
Clear rules could erase crypto’s existing moat
Tapscott also argues that regulatory ambiguity has, for years, acted as an unlikely moat around the crypto industry. Startups and offshore firms can tolerate legal and regulatory risk that heavily regulated financial institutions cannot. That has kept many of the world’s largest financial companies on the sidelines.
In his framing, the Clarity Act would fill that moat. Once the rules are clear, incumbents could bring to bear their advantages: trillions of dollars of capital, hundreds of millions of customer relationships, global distribution, sophisticated risk management, trusted brands, and decades of regulatory experience.
That, he says, should worry crypto companies more than banks. Critics who frame the bill as deregulation, or as a giveaway to the crypto industry, have the story backwards, he argues. Clear rules would expose crypto firms to direct competition from some of the most powerful financial institutions in the world.
Blockchain and the future of banking
The column closes by placing blockchain in a longer history of financial innovation. Tapscott writes that new technologies have not typically destroyed incumbents. Banking, he notes, was changed for the better by technologies ranging from the telegraph to the internet. In each case, forward-looking institutions used those tools to reach new customers, create new products, and build new markets.
Blockchain will be no different, he argues. Incumbents face a choice between defending the status quo and leading the innovation. If U.S. banks believe they can compete, and Tapscott says their advantages suggest they should, then they should demand the Clarity Act rather than fight it.
The note at the end of the article says the views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.