US Senator Tim Scott said he expects a possible compromise this week on a stablecoin yield payments provision that has stalled a Senate crypto market structure bill.
“I believe that this week we will have the first proposal in my hands to take a look at,” Scott, chair of the Senate Banking Committee working to advance the legislation, said at a crypto lobby event in Washington, D.C. “If that actually happens before the end of this week, and I think that it will […] I think we’re going to be in much better shape,” he added.
The Senate has been negotiating its version of a crypto market structure bill to set how regulators oversee crypto, following the House’s passage in July of the CLARITY Act. Progress has been held up by disputes over a provision that would bar third parties from offering yield payments on stablecoins—a practice exchanges use to attract customers.
Banking groups argue those third-party stablecoin yields create a loophole around the GENIUS Act, which bans yield payments from stablecoin issuers, and warn such yields could prompt deposit flight and threaten banking system stability. Crypto lobbyists counter that exchange-offered yields are competitive market offerings and accuse banks of anti-competitive behavior.
Scott said the stablecoin yield issue is the “largest publicly celebrated challenge,” but other negotiations continue on ethics rules, decentralized finance provisions and which entities are included or excluded from the legislation. “Those issues seem to pale in comparison to the rewards issue, but they’re still very important outstanding issues that we are nibbling away at as we work on the more popular issue of rewards and yield,” he said.
Scott added the committees have made substantial progress recently, saying momentum is building. Procedural rules mean both the Senate Banking Committee (overseeing the SEC) and the Senate Agriculture Committee (overseeing the CFTC) are involved. Banking indefinitely postponed a markup of the bill in January, while the Agriculture Committee sent its markup to the Senate floor that month. Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism; readers are encouraged to verify information independently.