The release of the long-awaited stablecoin yield compromise text is expected to slip past this week, according to a Politico report published on Wednesday, April 15.
Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), who has been spearheading the bipartisan effort alongside Senator Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) to resolve the months-long stablecoin yield standoff between Wall Street banks and the crypto industry, told Politico reporter Jasper Goodman that the text is unlikely to come out this week.
“We’re probably not going to put the text out this week,” Tillis said in the Thursday interview, adding that he first wants clarity on “the definitive time on the markup” for the underlying bill before unveiling a deal to resolve the yield issue.
Journalist Eleanor Terrett of Crypto in America noted on X that the delay tracks with her own reporting from Wednesday. “The idea, it appears, is to avoid putting the text under too much scrutiny before a markup date is on the calendar, which could create more runway for problems,” Terrett wrote.
A strategic hold
The decision to delay the text release appears to be a calculated move. Earlier this week, Tillis had told Politico on Monday that he was aiming to release the revised stablecoin yield draft this week, saying the “language has come together well.” But by Thursday, the strategy had shifted.
The reasoning is straightforward: releasing the text without a confirmed markup date gives both the banking lobby and crypto industry more time to pick apart the compromise language, potentially reigniting a fight that has already derailed the bill twice this year. By holding the text until a markup is formally scheduled, Tillis is trying to compress the window between public release and the committee vote, reducing the opportunity for either side to mobilize against the deal.
The Crypto in America newsletter had flagged this possibility on Wednesday, reporting that “timing could shift depending on when the markup is scheduled.”
Fed Chair hearing takes priority
Part of the reason for the slip is that the Senate Banking Committee has other business demanding its attention. Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) released next week’s schedule, and it did not include a CLARITY Act markup. Instead, the committee will be focused on the nomination hearing for Kevin Warsh, President Trump’s pick to serve as the next Federal Reserve Chair.
The hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, is expected to be a significant event on its own. According to a 69-page financial disclosure, Warsh holds over $100 million in assets, including early-stage investments in roughly a dozen crypto and blockchain companies through venture fund structures, including DeFi lending platform Compound, decentralized exchange dYdX, Solana, and Ethereum scaling networks like Optimism and Blast. Those crypto ties are expected to draw pointed questioning from senators probing potential financial conflicts of interest.
With the Warsh hearing consuming committee bandwidth, a CLARITY Act markup is now more likely to land in the final week of April or potentially slip into the second week of May, as the Senate is out the first week.
The bigger picture: A narrowing window
The slip adds pressure to an already tight legislative timeline. The CLARITY Act, officially known as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, passed the House of Representatives in July 2025 with a bipartisan vote of 294 to 134, but has been stuck in the Senate since January, primarily due to the stablecoin yield dispute between traditional banks and crypto platforms.
Banks, led by trade groups like the American Bankers Association (ABA) and the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), have pushed for a hard ban on any form of stablecoin yield, arguing that allowing crypto platforms to offer interest-like rewards would drain deposits from the traditional banking system. Crypto firms, led by Coinbase, Ripple, and others, have fought to preserve the ability to offer activity-based rewards tied to payments and transactions.
The Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise, reached in principle in March with White House backing, drew a structural line: passive yield on stablecoin balances would be banned, but narrowly defined activity-based rewards would remain permitted. The SEC, CFTC, and Treasury would jointly define what qualifies as permissible rewards within 12 months of enactment.
While the stablecoin yield question appears largely resolved at the principal level, the specific legislative language remains the sticking point. Both banking and crypto representatives have expressed concerns about the draft text, with one crypto industry leader telling Crypto in America that the “economic equivalence” standard in the draft is vague and could be interpreted restrictively by future regulators.
Beyond yield, other issues remain unresolved, including DeFi provisions, ethics language barring senior government officials from profiting from crypto assets, and tokenization treatment.
Clock is ticking, but not yet expired
Despite social media panic following Scott’s release of next week’s schedule without a CLARITY Act mention, not everyone sees the delay as fatal. Paradigm’s VP of Regulatory Affairs, Justin Slaughter, pushed back on the idea that the bill would die without an immediate markup, noting that the real time crunch does not begin until after Memorial Day. That gives lawmakers roughly six to seven weeks to move the bill out of the Banking Committee and across the Senate floor.
Still, the margin for error is thin. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) has repeatedly warned that this is the last realistic window to pass the CLARITY Act before midterm election politics take over. Senator Bernie Moreno has cautioned that if the bill does not reach the Senate floor by May, it risks going dark until after the November 2026 midterms, or potentially until 2030.
Prediction markets on Polymarket currently price the CLARITY Act being signed into law in 2026 at 59%, down from above 82% earlier this year.
CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig, speaking at a House Committee on Agriculture hearing the same day as the Politico report, urged lawmakers to move quickly. “I’m optimistic that Congress will soon send this landmark legislation to the President’s desk,” Selig said.
Whether that optimism holds depends on one man’s calendar: Tim Scott’s.
Also Read: CFTC Chair Selig Urges Congress to Send CLARITY Act to President
