Rep. French Haley urges level playing field for banks and crypto on stablecoins; Coinbase CEO says banks are resisting rewards
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Summary
Rep. French Haley defended provisions in the Clarity Act and Genius Act that treat dollar-backed stablecoins as payment tokens and said yield decisions belong in Treasury rulemaking; a clip of Coinbase CEO Bridal Armstrong argued banks are trying to block crypto rewards and called for equal footing.
Rep. French Haley, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Congress'passed measures in the House aimed at clarifying how dollar-backed stablecoins should be treated and that questions about paying yields on those tokens should be handled through Treasury rulemaking.
"In those bills, we have the two principles. One, that stablecoins would not pay a yield," Haley said, describing the Genius Act as treating a dollar-backed stablecoin primarily as a payment token rather than a bank product. He said the House previously passed the Clarity Act and Genius Act with bipartisan support and told the host that Treasury rulemaking should ensure bank and nonbank issuers are treated the same on sales practices and marketing.
Haley said tokenizing deposits in banks could reduce some differences between banks and nonbank issuers and reiterated the goal of a level playing field for sales and consumer protections.
The interview included a clip of Coinbase CEO Bridal Armstrong, who said the Genius Act "did enable, stablecoin rewards to happen," accused banks of trying to undermine the president's crypto agenda to protect profit margins, and urged that banks and crypto firms have an equal opportunity to offer rewards.
The host pressed Haley on possible "backdoor" approaches by exchanges that might use membership programs or third parties to pay rewards despite legislative limits; Haley acknowledged the issue and emphasized that a combination of identical sales-practice rules and deposit tokenization could address competitive imbalances. He also noted that dollar-backed stablecoins are typically backed by FDIC-insured deposits or U.S. Treasuries as a backstop, and that consumer protections should be consistent across issuers.
Why it matters: Lawmakers are weighing how to regulate a fast-evolving digital-asset market while balancing consumer protection and innovation. Haley framed the legislative principle in the Genius Act as limiting stablecoins' role to payments and leaving yield and marketing details to Treasury and regulators.
The interview did not include comments from bank representatives or regulators on the record, nor did it provide a timeline for any Treasury rulemaking cited by Haley.
