Banks spend $200M to stall crypto bill

TLDR

Major US banks are reported to have spent around $200 million lobbying against the CLARITY Act, a comprehensive US crypto bill that just failed in the Senate.

1. Coinbase policy chief Faryar Shirzad says large banks funded a roughly $200 million campaign that helped stall the CLARITY Act in a failed 49 50 cloture vote.
2. Banks opposed parts of the bill that protected stablecoin rewards and expanded crypto services, seeing them as a threat to traditional deposit and lending business.
3. With the bill blocked, crypto rules will be set mostly by regulators like the SEC and CFTC, while industry pushes for revised legislation in a future political window.

Deep Dive

1. Lobbying And The 200M Figure

Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad publicly argued that major banks collectively spent about $200 million lobbying against the CLARITY Act, contributing to its late stage defeat in the Senate cloture vote, which failed 49 50 and left the bill stalled. His comment is reported in a recent interview where he ties the size of the campaign to the bills collapse close to an election cycle, when lawmakers are more cautious about controversial votes. The figure comes from industry testimony rather than official disclosures, but it aligns with how heavily large financial institutions typically lobby around legislation that could reshape payment and deposit markets.

Confidence: moderate because the number is sourced to a single senior industry figure rather than public filings.

2. Why Banks Fought The Bill

The CLARITY Act would have locked in clearer rules for digital asset businesses, including consumer protections and stablecoin programs that are central to platforms like USDC and Coinbase. Reporting notes that banks opposed provisions allowing interest like rewards on stablecoin holdings, arguing those programs could drain deposits from traditional banks and weaken their ability to lend. At the same time, the bill imposed new audit and disclosure requirements on crypto projects raising more than 25 million dollars from the public, plus fundraising caps, which some in both finance and crypto saw as either too restrictive or too complex in a 600 plus page package.

3. Impact On Crypto Regulation And Markets

With the CLARITY Act blocked, crypto firms remain under a patchwork of existing SEC, CFTC and Treasury rules, rather than a single statute defining digital asset markets. Figures like Michael Saylor have argued the sector may be better off for now relying on agency actions, such as the SECs innovation exemptions for tokenized stocks, than on a broad law that could freeze restrictive compromises in place. For exchanges and stablecoin issuers, the failure means continued regulatory uncertainty, but also preserves some profitable programs, including stablecoin rewards that banks wanted curbed.

Conclusion

Banks appear to have spent heavily to slow a crypto bill they viewed as strengthening stablecoin and exchange driven competition for deposits. The CLARITY Acts defeat keeps US crypto under evolving regulator made rules rather than a single law, extending uncertainty but also avoiding some restrictive compromises. Over the next few years, the balance between aggressive lobbying, agency experimentation and selective new bills will shape where crypto products can grow and where they face new limits.