US President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that bankers are trying to undermine the GENIUS Act, the landmark stablecoin legislation he signed into law last year, and urged Congress to pass the crypto market structure legislation without interference.
“The United States needs to achieve a market structure as soon as possible. Americans should make more money with their money,” he said in the post. “Banks are making record profits and we are not going to let them undermine our powerful crypto agenda that will end up going to China and other countries if we don’t address the Clarity Act.”
He warned banks not to hold the Clarity Act “hostage” in his position, saying the bill was necessary to keep the cryptocurrency industry in the US.
“They need to come to a good deal with the cryptocurrency industry because that’s what’s best for the American people,” he said.
The market structure bill has been in limbo since the Senate Banking Committee indefinitely postponed a margin hearing, in which lawmakers were supposed to debate and vote on amendments to the bill, in January. There are a number of issues still delaying the passage of the bill, but the most public fight has been between the banking and crypto sectors over whether third parties can offer yield on stablecoin deposits to customers.
Banks are concerned that allowing Coinbase and other exchanges to offer stablecoin yields to customers could lead to a flight of deposits from the banking sector. Cryptocurrency companies argue that people should be allowed to earn returns on their holdings, a practice they say was permitted under the GENIUS Act.
The White House has facilitated meetings between banking and crypto industry representatives to negotiate the language of the bill. People familiar with the negotiations say the draft is circulating among lawmakers, but no agreement has yet been reached.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a federal banking regulator, said in a proposed rule last week that the terms of contracts between stablecoin issuers and their associated third parties must be clear about what exactly these third parties offer, but the agency did not explicitly prohibit performance payments.
World Liberty Financial, a company associated with Trump and his family, offers its own stablecoin, $1, and recently sought to obtain a trust statute under the OCC for an affiliated company.
Trump has spent recent days overseeing US military strikes against Iran, in what the US government has described as a “special combat operation.” Emerging hostilities have disrupted air travel throughout the Middle East, as well as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
