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The most significant public signal on the CLARITY Act's stablecoin yield dispute in weeks came on April 1 — not from a senator, not from the White House, but from Coinbase's chief legal officer.
Paul Grewal appeared on Fox Business's Mornings with Maria and described negotiations on the bill's stablecoin yield provisions as "very close to a deal."
He expressed confidence that progress would materialise in the near term and said he expected the bill to advance toward a Senate Banking Committee markup and ultimately a Senate floor vote. The nine-minute interview, titled "US on brink of major crypto breakthrough despite bank pushback," was the clearest public statement from Coinbase on the CLARITY Act's stablecoin provisions since the company reviewed the March 23 draft text and communicated concerns to Senate staff.
What Grewal Said
On the central question of whether stablecoins pose a deposit flight risk to banks — the argument the banking industry has used to justify the passive yield ban — Grewal addressed the empirical claim directly.
There has been no evidence of deposit flight to stablecoins, he said, and the concern should not be conflated with the other pressures US banks are currently facing. He described rewards on stablecoin activity as genuinely important, while acknowledging that other elements of the bill beyond the yield question are equally critical to delivering the regulatory framework the industry needs.
The framing was precise. Grewal did not say the yield language is settled. He said the gap is close to closing and that progress is coming. That distinction matters because the revised stablecoin yield text has still not been published. A deal that exists in principle but has not been drafted into final legislative language is not a deal that can survive a markup.
Where Negotiations Stand
As FinTech Weekly has reported, the March 23 draft text bans passive yield on stablecoin balances directly or indirectly and permits only narrowly defined activity-based rewards. It gives the SEC, CFTC, and Treasury twelve months to define what is permissible. That text reflected what banks demanded from the start. Coinbase raised concerns after reviewing it.
The revised text Tillis's office has indicated will reflect further conversations with industry stakeholders, including banks, has not yet been circulated publicly. The Senate returns from Easter recess on April 13. Chairman Tim Scott controls the Banking Committee calendar. The markup cannot be scheduled until the yield text holds — meaning both crypto firms and banking representatives have accepted the same language.
Grewal's public confidence on April 1 suggests Coinbase believes that threshold is close to being met. Whether the banking side reaches the same conclusion when the revised text is finally published is the remaining variable.
The Compression Problem
The legislative window is not indefinitely open. Senator Bernie Moreno has made the same point more bluntly — missing the window risks pushing digital asset legislation off the calendar until after 2026.
The April markup is not simply the next procedural step. For much of the industry it is the last realistic one before the political calendar closes.
Grewal's comments on April 1 — the day before Coinbase received conditional OCC approval for a national trust bank charter — suggest the company understands that arithmetic and is moving on both fronts simultaneously.
Editor's note: We are committed to accuracy. If you spot an error or have additional information about the CLARITY Act negotiations, please email [email protected].
