Author: Blockchain Knight
The current market capitalization of stablecoins has exceeded $310 billion, transforming them from mere mediums of exchange in the crypto world into a force that cannot be ignored in the global payment sector.
The previously passed GENIUS Act took a critical step forward. On one hand, it shapes compliant stablecoins into regulated payment tools; on the other hand, it explicitly prohibits issuers from paying interest or returns solely because users hold or use stablecoins.
This prohibition alters the path of value flow. The reserve returns that issuers earn from investing in high-liquidity assets such as short-term Treasury bonds and bank deposits cannot be directly passed back to holders, and must instead be redistributed across various links in the payment chain.
Consequently, the focus has shifted from the issuer-to-user relationship (the battle over the clarity of the act) to intermediaries such as exchanges, wallets, custodians, payment networks, and banks.
These intermediaries can design various workaround forms—such as rewards, fee reductions, settlement discounts, or product access—based on stablecoin balances, indirectly benefiting users.
A typical example is the partnership between Circle and Coinbase. The reserve income from USDC, after deducting fees, is distributed according to wallet holdings and platform contributions, allowing Coinbase to capture substantial stablecoin revenue.
This is the core change brought by the regulatory framework. GENIUS restricts direct interest payments but may not necessarily block third-party channels.
The banking sector fears that if exchanges or affiliated platforms continue to offer returns in the name of loyalty rewards, it will create a loophole for circumventing regulations, exacerbating deposit outflows from the banking system.
Meanwhile, the crypto industry argues that such rewards are normal business competition, not regulatory arbitrage.
If the frontier reward model is restricted, banks will be more emboldened to confine the economic activities of digital dollars within their own balance sheets.
Cathie Wood, founder of ARK Invest, recently acknowledged that stablecoins have fulfilled the role she once expected Bitcoin to play in the payment sector.
The data is telling: stablecoins have already dominated global retail crypto activities. In capital-restricted markets such as Venezuela and Brazil, the dollar-pegged USDT accounts for 60% to 70% or even over 90% of crypto transaction volumes, while Bitcoin's share is only in the single digits.
Stablecoins have become a genuine payment channel, while Bitcoin has quietly refocused its positioning, evolving toward being a scarce asset, an institutional reserve, and a store of value.
Currently, stablecoins shoulder the practical function of a medium of exchange, freeing Bitcoin from the need to simultaneously fulfill multiple missions such as payments, value storage, and inflation resistance. This allows Bitcoin to more purely solidify its value narrative around institutional allocation and long-term holding.
It is foreseeable that how much value of the future digital dollar economy directly reaches users, and how much settles in intermediary links, will depend on legislators' tolerance for indirect returns—in other words, the final outcome of the clarity act.
If the channel for platform rewards remains open, giants that control users and distribution channels will gain an advantage; if restrictions tighten, the appeal of banks and tokenized deposit products will rise.
Regardless of which side the scale tips toward, the payment mission of stablecoins and the interest redistribution mechanism behind them have already rewritten the underlying logic of the crypto market.
