A high-stakes White House meeting, including representatives from both the crypto and traditional banking sectors, aimed at finalizing the stalled CLAIRTY Act, concluded without a definitive breakthrough.
While the participants described the session convened by the White House Crypto Policy Council and led by President Trump’s crypto adviser Patrick Witt as “productive,” the disagreement over regulating yields offered to stablecoin holders remains a hurdle.
White House CLARITY Act Talks End Without Deal
The meeting held on Tuesday revealed the strategic divide between the lobbying factions, with representatives from the banking groups, the American Bankers Association (ABA), and the Bank Policy Institute (BPI), reportedly arriving with a “prohibition principles” document, advocating for a broad ban on any “financial or non-financial consideration” for holding stablecoins. They argued that stablecoin rewards could siphon deposits away from traditional banks, potentially stabilizing the financial system and curtailing capital available for local lending.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, often referred to as the Clarity Act, represents the most significant effort to date to provide a federal rulebook for regulating the crypto industry in the United States. Originally passed by the House in July 2025, the Clarity Act seeks to resolve the long-standing turf war between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) by officially categorizing digital assets into three buckets – digital commodities, investment contract assets, and permitted payment stablecoins.
While the GENIUS Act, passed by the House and Senate in summer 2025, established the baseline rules for how stablecoins will be issued and backed, the Clarity Act focuses more on market infrastructure, like governing how crypto exchanges operate and how investors are protected. However, yesterday’s meeting highlights that the bill is currently stuck in the Senate Banking Committee due to a controversial provision that would effectively ban digital asset service providers from paying any form of yield to customers.
Crypto Lobby Urges Community Banks to Hold Stablecoin Reserves
Conversely, negotiators representing major crypto firms such as Coinbase and Ripple, alongside advocacy groups like the Blockchain Association, pushed back forcefully during the summit. Sources indicate that crypto industry players expressed frustration that banks were attempting to expand existing prohibitions beyond direct interest, encroaching on the broader rewards programs that are integral to their business models.
Ripple’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, remarked that the session was “productive” with a clear, bipartisan momentum in the air. But he acknowledged that the industry will have to make compromises to move the Clarity Act forward. Coinbase’s CLO, Paul Grewal, also echoed this sentiment, stating that “crypto showed up ready to work,” and made progress, but there is still more to do.
Despite the arguments, the meeting led to both parties exploring specific areas of compromise. The crypto lobby reportedly proposed models where smaller community banks could partner with stablecoin issuers to hold reserves, addressing the bankers’ fears of deposit outflows. Discussion also involved differentiating between passive interest – a direct yield for holding a stablecoin, and activity-based rewards – such as cashback for spending. This distinction could pave the way for certain types of consumer incentives while safeguarding bank stability.
With the White House aiming for a resolution by the end of February, the responsibility now lies on both sides to return with concrete, proposed language for the bill. Should a compromise remain elusive, the fate of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act will fall on the Senate Banking Committee, where Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) is faced with the challenge of advancing the legislation without unanimous industry or political support. The event underscores the fierce battle for regulatory control and market share between old finance and the burgeoning digital asset economy.
Stripe Integrates x402 on Base to Power USDC Agentic Commerce
While regulators debate stablecoin yields and consumer rewards, payments giant Stripe has moved to finalize the infrastructure for autonomous commerce using stablecoins. On Tuesday, the company’s product manager, Jeff Weinstein, announced the integration of the x402 protocol on the Base blockchain.
This development revives the long-dormant “402 Payment Required” HTTP status code, transforming it into a native layer for AI agents. Stripe now allows developers to enable USDC agent payments for machine-to-machine (M2M) transactions – such as an AI paying for its own API calls, data scraping, or cloud computing – without human intervention.
The choice of Coinbase’s Layer-2 network highlights the industry’s shift toward low-cost, high-speed rails. Transactions using x402 can be settled in under two seconds with fees often totaling less than $0.01 on Base, making micropayments viable at a scale that traditional banking rails cannot match.
This technical milestone provides a real-world counterpoint to the banking sector’s fears voiced at the White House. While banks worry about deposit outflows, Stripe is betting that the future of global volume lies in agentic commerce, where millions of autonomous software programs require 24/7 programmable currencies like stablecoins to function.
