Open Frontier discusses why the crypto industry isn’t backing down on stablecoins, rewards, and America’s crypto future
Something important is happening in Washington right now, and here’s why everyday Americans should care.
While Congress debates the finer points of stablecoin legislation, one of the most straightforward benefits crypto has delivered to ordinary people is under threat: the ability to earn rewards on their digital dollars. The industry is at the table — with banks, the White House, and Congress — because the stakes are too high to sit this one out.
Let’s be direct about what’s actually going on.
This is about your money.
Stablecoin rewards aren’t some exotic financial instrument. They’re the digital equivalent of something completely ordinary: earning a return on the dollars you hold. Congress already settled this question when it passed GENIUS. Reopening that debate now doesn’t protect consumers — it creates uncertainty, delays landmark legislation, and hands a gift to every competitor waiting for America to trip over itself.
In a single week, Stand with Crypto advocates sent over 250,000 emails to their senators to say: protect our rewards. That’s a contingent of Americans who understand exactly what’s at stake and are paying attention to how their elected officials respond.
Know who benefits from the status quo.
U.S. banks earn roughly $176 billion per year on the approximately $3 trillion they park at the Federal Reserve. They collect another $187 billion annually from card swipe fees — that works out to about $1,440 per household, every year, just to use your own money in the payments system. Over $360 billion annually extracted from the economy, protected by rules that make real competition nearly impossible.
When Congress is pushed to ban stablecoin rewards, they’re not protecting consumers from risk. They’re protecting a $360 billion-per-year business model from competition. Congress picking those winners and losers — at everyday Americans’ expense — isn’t regulation. It’s a favor.
The data doesn’t support their argument either. People aren’t treating stablecoins as substitutes for bank deposits. Stablecoin rewards don’t reduce banks’ capacity to lend. If anything, stablecoins represent a genuine transformational opportunity for banks willing to compete rather than lobby.
The geopolitical dimension is real.
While the Senate deliberates, China has announced it will pay interest to users of the Digital Yuan. Undermining dollar supremacy has been a longstanding strategic goal of the PRC. A Senate vote banning stablecoin rewards would be, without exaggeration, a meaningful assist to that effort. America does not become the world’s crypto capital by making its regulatory environment less competitive than Beijing’s.
This fight isn’t over.
To keep America competitive and ensure regular people can earn a fair return on their own digital dollars, tell your representatives to protect stablecoin rewards and keep yield in the bill. Don’t let backroom lobbying rewrite the rules to preserve a broken status quo. Industry leaders, members of congress, and advocates should stop whispering and start leading. Make pro-yield a line you won’t cross, publicly, and back it with calls, letters, and coalition pressure until the Senate votes. Contact your lawmakers today and make it clear that banning rewards isn’t “consumer protection”—it’s a bailout for entrenched interests at your expense.