Crypto Vs. Banks: Key CLARITY Act Meetings This Week And What They Could Decide

bitcoinistPubblicato 2026-03-24Pubblicato ultima volta 2026-03-24

Introduzione

Negotiations on the CLARITY Act, a key crypto market-structure bill, are nearing completion, though final language remains undisclosed. Senator Cynthia Lummis stated talks are "99% resolved" on stablecoin yields, a central issue where banks fear deposit flight and crypto firms seek viable yield options. A reported White House compromise with senators may limit yield on idle balances to address banking concerns. Crypto and banking groups are meeting with the Senate Banking Committee this week to review the draft. Unresolved areas include DeFi, token classification, and tokenization. A committee markup is anticipated in mid-to-late April.

Negotiations over the CLARITY Act — the Senate’s long‐anticipated crypto market‐structure bill — appear to be nearing a conclusion, but key details remain under wraps, and no official date has been set for a Senate Banking Committee markup.

Industry sources and reporters tracking the talks say progress has been significant, yet the bill’s final language and whether it will resolve the long‐running dispute between banks and crypto firms have not been publicly confirmed.

Banks’ Concerns Addressed

Senator Cynthia Lummis, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee and has been a lead negotiator, told colleagues that talks are “99% of the way to resolution” on the thorny issue of stablecoin yield.

This signals that negotiators believe they are close to bridging a central divide: banks’ concern that yield on stablecoin deposits could prompt deposit flight and strain traditional lending, versus crypto firms’ desire for commercially viable yield options.

Reporting by Eleanor Terrett of Crypto In America added new detail to the picture. Terrett said the White House has tentatively reached a compromise with Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks, who have worked for nearly two months to hammer out language tied to the CLARITY Act.

According to Terrett, the draft reportedly acknowledges banking sector worries and would likely include measures aimed at limiting yield on idle balances. Banking sources told Terrett they do not yet know the precise contents of the text and said the provision has been kept closely held.

Senate To Hear Crypto, Banking Feedback This Week

Industry engagement with the process is continuing this week. Crypto trade association representatives are scheduled to meet with the Senate Banking Committee later Monday, while banking groups are set to review the draft text on Tuesday.

Those briefings will be critical: crypto stakeholders must decide whether the compromise language is acceptable, and banks will review whether the bill sufficiently addresses their deposit‐flight concerns.

While the draft reportedly will include a ban on yield on idle balances, other sensitive topics remain unresolved. Terrett reported that the bill still needs work on several areas, including decentralized finance (DeFi), token classification, and tokenization.

Those sections will require careful drafting to balance innovation, investor protection, and financial stability before the Banking Committee’s chair, Senator Tim Scott, can move to schedule a markup.

As NewsBTC reported last Friday, some sources suggest that a markup could occur between mid and late April, though no formal scheduling has been announced by the Banking Committee.

The daily chart shows the total crypto market cap’s Monday surge to $2.4 trillion. Source: TOTAL on TradingView.com

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com

Domande pertinenti

QWhat is the main focus of the CLARITY Act negotiations this week?

AThe main focus is on resolving the long-running dispute between banks and crypto firms, particularly concerning stablecoin yield and addressing banks' concerns about potential deposit flight.

QAccording to Senator Cynthia Lummis, how close are negotiators to resolving the stablecoin yield issue?

ASenator Cynthia Lummis stated that negotiations are '99% of the way to resolution' on the stablecoin yield issue.

QWhich two senators did the White House tentatively reach a compromise with regarding the CLARITY Act?

AThe White House tentatively reached a compromise with Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks.

QWhat specific measure is the draft bill expected to include to address banking sector worries?

AThe draft bill is expected to include measures aimed at limiting yield on idle balances to address banking sector concerns.

QWhat are some of the unresolved topics that still need work in the CLARITY Act according to the reporting?

AAccording to the reporting, the bill still needs work on several areas including decentralized finance (DeFi), token classification, and tokenization.

Letture associate

Annual Salary of Millions Competing for Electricians, Meta Rushes to Open Its Own Technical School

The AI boom is facing an unexpected bottleneck: a severe shortage of skilled construction workers and electricians. As tech giants like Meta, OpenAI, and Alphabet race to build massive data centers—such as OpenAI's $16 billion "Stargate" project—they are hitting a critical labor wall. The U.S. needs an estimated 130,000 more electricians, 240,000 construction workers, and 150,000 supervisors by 2030 for AI infrastructure alone, but tens of thousands of electrician jobs go unfilled each year. While AI companies offer high premiums, with electricians earning up to $280,000 annually, worker scarcity still causes massive losses—delays on a single project can cost $14.2 million per month. The complexity of building AI data centers, which require immense power (equivalent to powering hundreds of thousands of homes), sophisticated electrical systems, and advanced liquid cooling solutions, demands highly skilled technicians who are in short supply. To combat this, companies are investing heavily in training. Meta has committed $115 million to a free training school offering tuition, housing, and stipends, targeting 5,000 new workers. OpenAI is partnering with unions to secure skilled labor. These efforts are paying off, with a significant rise in Gen Z interest in trade schools over college. However, the power demands are staggering. AI data centers are driving a rapid surge in electricity consumption, projected to account for up to 12% of U.S. power use by 2028 and raising costs for consumers. Furthermore, the construction boom is project-based, leading to a potential future glut of trained workers once building peaks, which could depress wages industry-wide. The race for AI supremacy now depends as much on skilled hands as on advanced chips.

marsbit4 min fa

Annual Salary of Millions Competing for Electricians, Meta Rushes to Open Its Own Technical School

marsbit4 min fa

OpenAI No Longer Sells Its Most Expensive Model for Profit

OpenAI is shifting its business strategy away from promoting its most expensive, flagship models for every task. Recent price cuts—80% for GPT-5.6 Luna and 20% for Terra—signal a deeper change: the company now actively advises users that many tasks don't require the most powerful model. Instead, OpenAI recommends a tiered approach: use the high-end GPT-5.6 Sol for complex planning and analysis, then delegate execution to cheaper models like Luna. This mirrors moves by Anthropic, which recently launched Claude Opus 5 at half the price of its top model, Fable 5. Both companies are de-emphasizing flagship models as primary revenue drivers, using them instead for brand prestige and technological showcases. The industry is entering a "mass-market" phase, similar to automotive, where high-volume, cost-effective models handle daily operations and drive scale. OpenAI's price reductions are partly enabled by AI models themselves optimizing underlying code and infrastructure, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of efficiency gains and cost reduction. Competition is shifting from "who is smartest" to "who offers the best value." The goal is no longer selling individual models but fostering widespread API adoption and ecosystem lock-in. By making AI calls cheap and ubiquitous, companies like OpenAI aim to become the indispensable, utility-like infrastructure powering automated workflows—the "water and electricity" of software, quietly embedded everywhere.

marsbit4 min fa

OpenAI No Longer Sells Its Most Expensive Model for Profit

marsbit4 min fa

Suspected 4th Coldcard attack wave sweeps 389 Bitcoin: Galaxy’s Thorn

Coldcard hardware wallet users are facing a new wave of coordinated attacks targeting a firmware flaw, with researcher Alex Thorn flagging 218 recent transactions moving approximately 389 Bitcoin from potentially impacted addresses. The attack pattern shows a high rate of transactions targeting unique victim addresses, differing from previous waves. The vulnerability, which causes affected devices to generate weaker wallet seeds, is estimated to have impacted over 1,100 wallets, leading to around $90 million in Bitcoin stolen. Thorn advises affected users who control their keys may attempt to move funds with a higher-fee transaction before the attacker's transactions are confirmed.

cointelegraph12 min fa

Suspected 4th Coldcard attack wave sweeps 389 Bitcoin: Galaxy’s Thorn

cointelegraph12 min fa

Bitcoin Miners Are Waving the White Flag, But Their Stocks Are Soaring

Bitcoin miners are capitulating as evidenced by a sustained drop in network hash rate and a record-steep 19.9% decline in mining difficulty, signaling the shuttering of unprofitable machines. However, in a significant divergence from historical patterns, the stocks of publicly traded mining companies have soared, with one major player gaining over 430% in the past year, even as BTC's price fell roughly 46%. This surge is largely attributed to these companies pivoting toward the more lucrative AI narrative. Simultaneously, miners face a structural squeeze. Daily block reward revenue in BTC terms has hit a new all-time low following the latest halving, with current dollar-denominated daily revenue around $30 million compared to a longer-term average of ~$40 million. Fee revenue remains negligible, covering less than one block's subsidy over a 28-day average and accounting for only about ten minutes of the network's daily security budget. This capitulation cycle is unique: miner stress and crypto price weakness have decoupled due to alternative revenue streams (AI), while the long-term reliance on increasing bitcoin prices to offset shrinking subsidies continues, with fee income still far from filling the impending gap.

marsbit15 min fa

Bitcoin Miners Are Waving the White Flag, But Their Stocks Are Soaring

marsbit15 min fa

Will the Fed Definitely Raise Interest Rates in September? How Will Crypto and U.S. Stocks Withstand the Pressure?

The market's expectation for a September Fed rate hike surged dramatically in early August, jumping from under 50% to over 80% within a week. This shift followed a contentious July FOMC meeting, where a 9-3 vote to hold rates revealed growing dissent from hawkish members advocating for an immediate hike to combat persistent inflation. The primary catalyst for this repricing is rising oil prices, driven by renewed geopolitical tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, which threaten global supply. Energy costs directly influence inflation metrics, making the upcoming July CPI report (due August 12th) a critical data point. If it shows inflation reaccelerating, the probability of a September hike will solidify. For Bitcoin and crypto assets, this is typically bearish news. Bitcoin continues to behave as a high-beta, liquidity-sensitive risk asset. A rate hike raises the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets and could drive capital toward money markets, pressuring crypto prices in the short term. However, historical patterns suggest that if a hike is perceived as the end of a tightening cycle rather than the start, any negative price impact may be brief. U.S. stocks, particularly crypto-linked equities like Coinbase and growth-oriented tech stocks, are also vulnerable. Higher rates increase discount rates in valuation models, putting pressure on high-multiple companies. This coincides with a pivotal tech earnings season where investor focus has shifted from massive AI capital expenditure to tangible revenue and cash flow generation. Companies with negative cash flow and weak growth narratives could face heightened volatility if borrowing costs rise in September. In summary, a September Fed hike has evolved into a mainstream market scenario. Key factors to watch are oil prices, the July CPI report, and Fed communications, which will determine the final decision and its impact on volatile crypto and equity markets.

marsbit15 min fa

Will the Fed Definitely Raise Interest Rates in September? How Will Crypto and U.S. Stocks Withstand the Pressure?

marsbit15 min fa

Trading

Spot