Next week is not just another policy discussion it could quietly shape the future of crypto in the United States. On February 10, the White House is hosting a closed-door meeting focused on stablecoins and the broader Crypto Market Structure Bill. The urgency is real. The White House has given lawmakers and industry leaders a hard end-of-February deadline to resolve their differences because the entire bill is currently stuck on one unresolved issue.
At the center of everything is a single question that sounds simple but carries massive consequences: should stablecoin holders be allowed to earn yield? This one issue has effectively frozen the most serious attempt the U.S. has made so far to regulate crypto in a structured way. Banks are firmly against it. Crypto companies are firmly in favor. And neither side is blinking.
From the banking side, the opposition is about survival, not ideology. Traditional banks rely on deposits as the backbone of their business. Today, most savings accounts pay around 0.3% to 0.4%, and checking accounts pay close to zero. Yield-bearing stablecoins, on the other hand, can offer incentives closer to 3% or even 4%. If stablecoins are allowed to scale with yield, banks fear a slow but steady drain of deposits out of the traditional system. Industry groups have warned lawmakers that, over time, more than six trillion dollars in deposits could be at risk. In their view, this isn’t just a crypto issue — it’s a threat to the banking model itself.
Crypto firms see the situation very differently. For exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and on-chain platforms, yield is not an optional feature — it’s a core part of how the ecosystem works. Removing yield would make stablecoins far less competitive and, in their view, would lock in an unfair advantage for banks. Some crypto companies have made their position very clear: if yield is banned outright, they would rather see no bill pass at all than accept a framework they believe protects banks at crypto’s expense. That’s how deep the divide has become.
This conflict has been building for months. The CLARITY Act passed the House in July 2025 with strong bipartisan support, raising hopes that the U.S. was finally moving toward clear crypto rules. Senate committees began drafting their own versions, and momentum was real. But once the stablecoin yield debate escalated, everything slowed down. Committee markups were delayed, draft texts were repeatedly revised, and industry support began to fracture. Eventually, progress stalled completely.
That stalemate is exactly why the White House is stepping in now. This meeting isn’t symbolic. It’s designed to force movement. If a compromise on stablecoin yield is reached, the legislative path reopens quickly. The bill can move to Senate committee markup, then to a full Senate vote, followed by House-Senate reconciliation, and finally to the President’s desk. Without a deal, none of that can happen.
There’s also a political clock ticking in the background. The 2026 midterm elections are approaching, and once campaign season intensifies, complex legislation like this becomes far harder to pass. If this bill isn’t finalized soon, it risks being pushed into the next Congress, delaying full implementation by years. Lawmakers are very aware of that risk, which is why the pressure right now is so intense.
All of this matters because stablecoins are no longer a niche crypto experiment. They represent hundreds of billions of dollars in market value and trillions in annual transaction volume. They are critical liquidity rails for crypto markets and increasingly important for payments, exchanges, DeFi, and institutional participation. How they are regulated will shape the next phase of crypto adoption in the U.S.
That’s why the February 10 White House meeting is such a pivotal moment. If the stablecoin yield dispute is resolved, momentum returns, Senate movement resumes, and full market structure legislation becomes possible. If talks fail, delays grow, politics take over, and regulatory uncertainty continues something markets have already shown they don’t like.
Crypto doesn’t need perfect rules. It needs clear ones. Next week may decide whether the U.S. finally delivers that clarity or once again lets the moment slip.
