Today in crypto, Donald Trump lashed out at banks, urging them to cut a deal on a crypto bill, CFTC chair Michael Selig said the regulator will soon address how to handle crypto perpetual futures contracts and the European Central Bank gave a stark warning on stablecoins.
Trump swipes at banks over stalled crypto bill
US President Donald Trump took a shot at banks on Tuesday amid negotiations over stablecoin yield payments that have stalled a crypto market structure bill from advancing in the Senate.
In a post to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, trump said the stablecoin-regulating GENIUS Act “is being threatened and undermined by the Banks, and that is unacceptable — We are not going to allow it.”
“The Banks should not be trying to undercut The Genius Act, or hold The Clarity Act hostage,” he added. “They need to make a good deal with the Crypto Industry because that’s what’s in best interest of the American People.”
The House passed the CLARITY Act, which lays out how crypto would be regulated, in July, but the Senate is working on its own version due to procedural rules.
Banking groups have urged the Senate to include a ban on all stablecoin yield payments to close what they argue is a loophole in the GENIUS Act that allows third-party platforms to make stablecoin yield payments, which issuers are banned from giving.
CFTC chair teases crypto perpetual futures in ‘the next month or so‘
Michael Selig, chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said the agency will soon address how to handle perpetual futures contracts for cryptocurrencies.
In a Tuesday panel hosted by the Milken Institute in Washington, DC, Selig said that the CFTC was working toward getting “true perpetual futures” in the United States “within the next month or so.”
The CFTC chair is currently the only Senate-confirmed commissioner, with no indication as of Tuesday that US President Donald Trump will nominate anyone to fill any of the agency’s four vacant commissioner slots.
“The prior administration drove a lot of these firms and the liquidity offshore,” said Selig in a panel discussion with SEC Chair Paul Atkins.
Stablecoins could weaken bank lending and monetary policy in Europe: ECB
The European Central Bank said increasing stablecoin use may pull money out of bank deposits and weaken the way monetary policy flows through to lending, according to a new ECB working paper.
Growing adoption of stablecoins, which are digital assets often pegged to currencies such as the US dollar or euro, is expected to draw funds away from traditional bank deposits, the ECB said in its latest working paper series, “Stablecoins and Monetary Policy Transmission,” released Tuesday.
“Our analysis shows that rising interest in stablecoins is linked to a measurable decline in retail bank deposits and a reduction in lending to firms,” ECB staff said, adding that stablecoins can reduce the amount of credit banks provide to the real economy.
The ECB noted that the effects are nonlinear and vary depending on the scale of stablecoin adoption, their design features and how they are regulated.
The report is part of the ECB’s ongoing efforts to monitor stablecoins, whose market capitalization has more than doubled over the past three years to $312 billion and is projected to reach $2 trillion by 2028.
“Banks rely heavily on deposits as a stable and low-cost source of funding to support lending to households and businesses,” the paper said. “When deposits decline, banks may be forced to rely more on wholesale or market-based funding, which is typically more expensive and less stable,” it added.
