Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) dismisses fears that stablecoin yields will impact lending

The Trump White House, via its Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), has dismissed the fears that community bankers and traditional stakeholders have raised concerning the yield clause in the CLARITY Act. The report described the effect of yield-bearing stablecoins as “quantitatively small” rather than the existential threat that the banking lobby claims. 

The Council of Economic Advisors’ computations projected a minimal 0.02% increase in lending, amounting to an additional $2.1 billion. Big banks are responsible for 76% of the extra lending, while community banks have to make up another $500 million, which adds a meager 0.026% on top of their current lending businesses. 

With those published numbers, the CLARITY Act may finally be ready to move out of bureaucratic limbo, as the Trump White House-appointed committee has declared its position on the highly contentious yield clause in the bill, building on the parameters set in the GENIUS Act, which became law in July last year. 

Trump White House: Stablecoin yields won’t affect banks

The report published today, April 8, reached strong conclusions: the issue of yield prohibition has no meaningful impact on stablecoin issuers, community banks, or traditional big lenders, no matter how the final draft shakes out. 

According to the Trump White House, the traditional banking lobby is fighting over an additional 0.02% (about $2.1 billion) in lending business, while community banks (with assets under $10 billion) are on the hook for an additional $500 million in obligations. 

In the hypothetical presented by the council, the CLARITY Act is being held up by a 0.026% additional overhead for community banking business and a corresponding $800 million net welfare costs. 

And even under the worst-case scenario, where the stablecoin business increases sixfold from its current $317 billion market size to nearly $2 trillion and other dominoes unexpectedly fall, bank lenders still won’t have to deal with more than a 4.4% hit, worth an extra $531 billion.

As for the community bankers, the number goes from $500 million to $129 billion, a 6.7% increase on their current workload.  

The CEA ruled out any scenario in which consumers win, dismissing conditions for positive welfare impacts as “implausible.” 

The document concluded that: “Yield prohibition would do very little to protect bank lending, while forgoing the consumer benefits of competitive returns on stablecoin holdings.”

Yield prohibition math may be contested 

The paper by the CEA acknowledged that not everyone calculates the impact of allowing yields to rise the same way, noting that some “analyses estimate the effect on lending in the trillions of dollars.” 

That is not the first time the administration has evaluated situations differently from others, as seen in multiple clashes with the Federal Reserve’s interest rate strategy under Chair Jerome Powell. Disagreements over job numbers also led to the ousting of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer in August 2025. 

Cryptopolitan has reported on monthly downward revisions of jobs data by the Trump administration.

The banking lobby is expected to push back at some point.

Regulators advance crypto clarity 

The Trump admin continues to deliver on its campaign commitment to provide regulatory clarity for the crypto sector, following the enforcement-heavy tenure of Gary Gensler at the SEC. 

On April 7, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released a joint statement calling for public input on a proposed rule to set anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) up to the standards presented by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). 

The agencies are pushing to apply the same rules across the board, whatever is agreed upon, with special emphasis on “higher-risk customers and activities, consistent with the risk profile of the institution,” rather than wasting resources on lower-risk situations. 

One day earlier, on April 6, Trump-appointed SEC Chair Paul Atkins teased a future in which DeFi projects can legally raise funds and distribute tokens to investors through the “Reg Crypto” exemption under the Securities Act of 1933. 

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