The direct triggering factor for the approximately 19% decline in CRCL stock price is the expectation of restrictions on the stablecoin revenue mechanism as stated in the CLARITY Act, which needs to be examined from the perspective of the stablecoin business model itself The current core profit structure of stablecoins is not complicated, essentially using the fiat assets deposited by users to allocate low-risk assets such as short-term US bonds, in order to earn interest rate spreads Issuers such as Circle do not distribute this portion of revenue to users, but retain it as their own income, which has been the main source of profit for USDC for a long time An important expectation in the market before was that, if regulation allowed, stablecoins could gradually introduce deposit like attributes, such as distributing interest to coin holders or giving USDC itself the ability to generate returns in some form. This would upgrade stablecoins from payment tools to a combination of digital cash and income assets, significantly increasing demand stickiness and scale ceiling But the signal released by the CLARITY Act is that stablecoin issuers cannot directly pay interest on balances, and can only provide rewards based on usage behavior, such as transaction rebates, cooperative ecosystem incentives, etc This essentially cuts off the path of holding and earning interest, making stablecoins closer to payment media rather than stored value assets This restriction has three layers of impact The first layer is the user behavior level In the absence of returns, users are more inclined to use stablecoins as intermediary tools rather than holding assets for the long term Funds will only enter the stablecoin system when transactions or transfers are needed, reducing the sedimentation scale The second layer is the competitive structure Compared with monetary funds, bank deposits, and even interest bearing assets on the chain, the attractiveness of non yielding stablecoins in asset allocation has significantly decreased Especially in an environment where interest rates are still relatively high, opportunity costs become even higher The third layer is the valuation logic The previous optimistic expectations for CRCL were largely due to the combination of "continuous expansion of USDC scale+amplification of interest rate spread income+opening up demand for potential interest distribution" If the last item is explicitly restricted by regulation, the growth story will be compressed back to "payment+settlement infrastructure", and valuation will need to be repriced Meanwhile, this also explains why the market response is so rapid Because once stablecoins fail to evolve into "interest bearing assets," their network effects and ability to accumulate funds will be constrained, resulting in a decrease in the long-term growth slope, rather than just changes in short-term profits However, it should also be noted that this does not mean that stablecoins have no room for development Payment, cross-border settlement, and on chain financial infrastructure are still huge markets, but the path is more inclined towards "scale driven low profit businesses" rather than "high stickiness and high profit bank like models" This decline does not reflect a single policy shock, but rather a market repricing of the ultimate form of stablecoins, from "potentially becoming part of the digital dollar deposit system" to a more conservative positioning of "efficient payment and clearing tools"