The stablecoin yield ban in the U.S. Clarity Act is opening a clear split inside the crypto industry. Coinbase has again told Senate offices it cannot support the latest draft, pointing to serious concerns over the bill’s stablecoin yield language. It is the second time the company has rejected the proposal.
Crypto Banter founder Ran Neuner publicly backed that position. His argument is blunt: banks wanted a yield ban, banks got one, and crypto lost. In his view, the restriction protects a banking system that had years to innovate and did not.
Frax Finance says pass the bill first
Frax Finance founder Sam Kazemian offered a different reading during an appearance this week on The Rollup’s Stabled Up podcast. He described the current yield compromise as one step in a longer political process rather than a final outcome. His point is that crypto is reacting as if the conversation has ended, while the legislative fight is still unfolding.
Kazemian’s preferred path is to accept the current wording, get the broader market structure bill passed, and reopen the yield debate in the next legislative cycle. The logic is practical. Guidance from the SEC or CFTC can be reversed by a later administration with limited friction, but a law that has already passed is much harder to undo.
Why Tether and DeFi teams may be less exposed
Kazemian also argued that the ban does not hit every business model in the same way. Tether has never paid passive yield to holders, so its model does not depend on sharing Treasury-based returns with users. That means the current restriction does little to Tether directly. If rivals are blocked from narrowing the gap through yield-sharing arrangements, Tether’s position can improve.
For DeFi-native teams, the carveout for activity-based yield survived the compromise. That matters because many of those teams already operate around that structure, leaving the bill with limited impact on how they currently function.
Coinbase’s resistance is tied to revenue
The gap between Kazemian and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is less about ideology than exposure. According to the source material, stablecoin revenue accounted for roughly 19% of Coinbase’s total revenue in Q3 2025. The Clarity Act’s ban on arrangements that are economically equivalent to deposit interest reaches directly into that model.
That helps explain Armstrong’s earlier view that no bill would be better than a bad bill. For Coinbase, this is tied to a specific revenue stream. For other firms, the same text can look like an advantage.
The Senate calendar may decide the fight
Kazemian also pointed to an issue getting less attention than the public back-and-forth: Armstrong does not decide the outcome. Senators do, and they are weighing pressure from both the banking lobby and the crypto sector at the same time.
The timeline is tight. The report says that if the Clarity Act does not pass before Congress heads into recess ahead of the midterm cycle, the bill is unlikely to move again until 2027. On Polymarket, the odds of the bill being signed into law this year are currently priced at 49%. The Senate Banking Committee markup is targeted for the second half of April, after the Easter recess ends on April 13.
That leaves the industry with two competing strategies. One side wants to lock in the broader legal framework now and revisit yield rules later. The other sees the current language as unacceptable in its present form. Both positions follow directly from what each company has at stake.