How a White House Stablecoin Meeting Could Unlock the CLARITY Act — and Cut Into Your USDC Rewards

The U.S. stablecoin debate is about to hit another inflection point. A Feb. 10 White House meeting on stablecoin policy is being viewed by parts of the market as a potential catalyst to unstick the CLARITY Act in the Senate — but with a catch that matters directly to crypto investors and DeFi users: the price of progress could be tighter limits on USDC-style rewards.

Why the Feb. 10 White House meeting matters

The White House is convening senior stakeholders on Feb. 10 to continue negotiations over how U.S. law should treat stablecoin “yield” and rewards. According to commentary highlighted in crypto media, including a post from Milk Road, the meeting is being framed as a possible step toward breaking the logjam around H.R. 3633 — the CLARITY Act — after it stalled in the Senate.

H.R. 3633, which passed the House and was referred to the Senate Banking Committee in September 2025, was scheduled for a Jan. 15 executive session and markup. That session was publicly listed as “POSTPONED,” and no new markup date has been posted as of Feb. 9, leaving the bill in procedural limbo.

The White House already hosted a stablecoin-focused stakeholder meeting on Feb. 2. That session ended without agreement on how to treat stablecoin yield or rewards, with participants choosing to continue talks instead of finalizing a deal. The Feb. 10 meeting is therefore expected to be another incremental step in a drawn-out negotiation, not a single decisive summit that settles all issues at once.

For investors tracking timelines, the link is straightforward: without some consensus on how stablecoin rewards fit into the regulatory framework, the Senate’s work on a comprehensive crypto market-structure bill has no clear path forward. The Feb. 10 meeting is one of the few near-term events that could re-open that path.

How stablecoin rewards became the sticking point

The core dispute turning into a veto point is surprisingly concrete: whether rewards on stablecoins such as USDC should be treated as interest-like returns, loyalty rebates, or something closer to securities-style yield products.

Coinbase currently markets “3.50% rewards on USDC” as part of its Coinbase One offering, while explicitly disclosing that the rate is subject to change and may vary by region. That framing positions USDC rewards as a programmatic distribution choice rather than a built-in property of the stablecoin protocol itself.

From a policy standpoint, this raises several classification questions that go far beyond any single platform:

• Should these rewards be treated as bank-like interest on a dollar balance?
• Are they better understood as loyalty or rebate-style incentives tied to platform membership or activity?
• Or do they look more like yield-bearing products that should trigger securities-style scrutiny?

Reporting from the Wall Street Journal has intensified this debate by contrasting stablecoin rewards around 3.5% with traditional bank deposit rates around 0.1%, and by citing a Treasury scenario in which up to $6.6 trillion in deposits could potentially shift under certain assumptions. That estimate is best understood as a scenario output rather than an observed flow, but it has effectively escalated the discussion from a marketing question to one involving systemic risk and bank funding costs.

Bloomberg Law coverage, as cited by CryptoSlate, has described the issue as unresolved even after the Feb. 2 White House stakeholder session, underscoring how central the yield question has become to the broader regulatory package.

What’s actually in the CLARITY Act on custody and DeFi

Behind the yield headlines, the underlying bill — H.R. 3633 — carries provisions with direct implications for self-custody and DeFi that many crypto users see as non-negotiable.

The bill text, as passed by the House and now sitting with the Senate Banking Committee, includes an explicit “Protection of Self-Custody” clause. It states that consumers retain the right to maintain hardware or software wallets and to transact directly peer-to-peer. For retail users, this provision functions as a legislative benchmark: any Senate rewrite or later compromise will likely be judged against whether it preserves or dilutes this language.

On DeFi, the House approach does not treat decentralized finance as an afterthought. The bill includes headings that carve out “DECENTRALIZED FINANCE ACTIVITIES NOT SUBJECT TO THIS ACT” in sections amending both the Securities Exchange Act and the Commodity Exchange Act. The exact impact of those carve-outs will depend on how terms like “DeFi activities” and “control” are defined in practice, but the structure signals a deliberate attempt to wall off some decentralized activity from the full weight of the new regime.

For investors and builders, this creates a split structure within the bill:

• A relatively protective posture on self-custody and peer-to-peer transfers in the House text.
• An explicit DeFi scope debate embedded in amendment sections, rather than hidden in later rulemaking.

The challenge now is that these provisions are intertwined politically with the stablecoin-yield fight. Progress on one front likely depends on a workable trade-off on the other.

Possible outcomes: what changes for your USDC rewards?

Public reporting around the talks points toward a few broad paths, each with different implications for returns on stablecoin holdings.

1. Partial compromise with constrained passive yield

One widely discussed base-case scenario is that negotiations ultimately produce a compromise allowing certain types of “rewards” programs, while limiting or reclassifying passive, balance-based payouts. In that structure, yields framed as activity-based or membership-based benefits would remain viable, while programs that look like straightforward interest on idle balances face tighter statutory or regulatory constraints.

For users, this would likely mean a shift in how rewards are packaged rather than their outright disappearance. Instead of a simple APY displayed next to your USDC balance, you might see more emphasis on:

• Card-linked cashback in stablecoins
• Usage incentives for payments or transfers
• Tiered membership benefits tied to activity levels

2. Yield compromise that restarts the Senate process

A more optimistic scenario is that the White House-facilitated talks converge on a yield framework that reduces enough opposition inside the Senate Banking Committee for it to re-calendar its postponed markup of H.R. 3633. Under that path, the CLARITY Act moves back onto a defined legislative track, giving the market clearer visibility into future rules on custody, DeFi, and stablecoins.

As of Feb. 9, however, no replacement date has been posted for the Jan. 15 session, underscoring that this outcome still depends on political will, not just technical drafting.

3. Extended stalemate with rewards as a veto point

The downside scenario is that stablecoin yield continues to function as a veto point. In that case, the gap between the House-passed text and any Senate action widens, delaying statutory clarity on key issues while leaving rewards programs exposed to ad hoc regulatory pressure or future enforcement.

For investors, that would mean ongoing uncertainty: existing rewards offers, such as the 3.50% USDC rate advertised by Coinbase, could become harder to price over the medium term if the federal framework remains unresolved.

Global context: MiCA and the pressure on interest-like benefits

The U.S. discussion is not happening in isolation. At least one major jurisdiction has already baked constraints on interest-like features into its crypto framework, providing a reference point — and a potential pressure source — for U.S. policymakers.

The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) includes rules that limit interest-like benefits for certain categories of tokens, particularly in the stablecoin space. That approach is already influencing product design: for example, earlier coverage by CryptoSlate has highlighted changes to USDC-related rewards programs in MiCA-compliant regions, with Coinbase citing the new e-money token requirements as a driver.

This creates a strategic trade-off for U.S. lawmakers:

• Align more closely with MiCA-style restrictions, reducing regulatory arbitrage but constraining the role of stablecoins as cash-management tools.
• Allow a more permissive rewards channel, supporting crypto-native and fintech distribution models but potentially amplifying concerns about bank disintermediation and deposit flight.

Implementation risk is especially acute if the U.S. chooses a broad definition of regulated yield. Even if the yield source sits outside a stablecoin issuer’s balance sheet, on-ramps, custodians, and user interfaces can become choke points where rules on rewards are enforced. That would matter not only for centralized platforms but also for how DeFi protocols are accessed in practice by retail users.

What crypto investors and DeFi users should watch next

For now, two concrete signals stand out for anyone with exposure to stablecoins or building in DeFi:

• Whether the Feb. 10 White House meeting happens as planned and produces draft language that breaks the Feb. 2 deadlock on stablecoin yield and rewards.
• Whether the Senate Banking Committee posts a new markup date to consider H.R. 3633, replacing the postponed Jan. 15 executive session.

On the substance, crypto participants will be looking closely at:

• How any compromise defines “rewards,” “interest,” and “yield” across stablecoin products.
• Whether the House’s “Protection of Self-Custody” language survives intact through Senate revisions and any eventual House–Senate reconciliation.
• How the DeFi carve-out headings are translated into operative text and regulatory practice.

Until those pieces are resolved, today’s USDC rewards and similar offers exist under a cloud of policy risk. The upside for the industry is that the same negotiations threatening yield programs could also deliver long-sought statutory clarity on custody, market structure, and DeFi scope. The trade now facing crypto users is whether some sacrifice on rewards becomes the necessary price for that broader regulatory certainty.