Crypto Advocates Renew Stablecoin Rewards Push as Market Structure Bill Nears Key Senate Vote
The debate surrounding stablecoin rewards is growing louder as the Senate Banking Committee approaches a key markup vote on a crypto bill.
In brief
- Stablecoin rewards are emerging as a focal point for a crypto market structure bill.
- A lobbyist described the yield-like payments as a major unresolved factor.
- They said that they’ve received assurances of “parity” from lawmakers.
The debate surrounding stablecoin rewards is growing louder as the Senate Banking Committee approaches a key markup vote on a crypto market structure bill next Thursday.
After hundreds of community bank leaders urged U.S. Senate members to protect local lending from perceived stablecoin risks, several high-profile members of the crypto industry pushed back, including Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad.
“Congress already settled this in GENIUS—reopening it now only creates uncertainty and risks the future of the U.S. Dollar as commerce moves on-chain,” he said on X, referring to provisions in landmark stablecoin legislation passed this summer.
It’s no mystery why big banks want rewards banned. U.S. banks earn $176B/year on the ~$3T they park at the Fed—and another $187B/year from card swipe fees (~$1,440 per household). That’s $360B+ annually from payments and deposits alone (and massive unused lending capacity that…
— Faryar Shirzad 🛡️ (@faryarshirzad) January 7, 2026
Under those rules, companies like Coinbase are able to make yield-like payments to customers who hold stablecoins on their platform, but organizations like the American Bankers Association have described the workaround as detrimental to local communities.
“Allowing inducements like interest or rewards on stablecoins could incentivize customers to move savings out of banks, jeopardizing the lending that fuels growth in towns across America,” the organization’s council of community bankers wrote in a letter to lawmakers on Monday.
Cody Carbone, CEO of The Digital Chamber, a leading trade association for the crypto industry, told Decrypt that stablecoin rewards are squarely in focus among lawmakers, representing one of several key factors that need to be resolved to make way for the bill’s passage.
On Tuesday, more than a dozen pro-crypto senators attended a meeting in Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott’s office, but it’s unclear what progress lawmakers made during the three-hour meeting, per Topics reportedly raised include ethics rules, bipartisan representation at agencies regulating crypto, and a number of DeFi-specific rules.