Eric Trump took to X (formerly Twitter) to directly name JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, accusing the three megabanks of orchestrating a lobbying campaign to block crypto platforms from offering Americans stablecoin interest products yielding roughly 5% annually. He argued these efforts are designed to shield the traditional banking sector from digital asset competition.
Gap Between Bank Rates and Stablecoin Yields
Trump highlighted that most U.S. banks currently pay customers annual percentage yields between 0.01% and 0.05%, while stablecoin platforms can offer around 5% through on-chain savings products. He also pointed out that banks earn about 3.65% interest on reserves held at the Federal Reserve, yet pass only a tiny fraction to depositors. According to Trump, the push to restrict stablecoin yields is a blatant attempt to maintain control over consumer savings markets.
Banking industry lobby groups are reportedly spending millions of dollars to insert restrictions on stablecoin yield provisions into the Clarity Act, a key piece of U.S. digital asset legislation under discussion.
Conflict of Interest and Regulatory Debate
Eric Trump himself is involved in crypto through World Liberty Financial, a platform he co-founded that issues the USD1 stablecoin and the WLFI token. Critics argue his family ties—his father is U.S. President Donald Trump—raise conflicts of interest in policy debates.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently argued that any platform paying interest on balances should face the same regulatory framework as banks, since such services resemble deposit-taking. However, Patrick Witt, executive director of the President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, countered that paying yield alone does not trigger bank-level regulation unless the underlying reserves are lent out or rehypothecated.
Negotiations among crypto firms, banking institutions, and policymakers continue as lawmakers decide how to regulate stablecoin interest programs in the United States.