Phyrex|Jan 30, 2026 23:32
I have been mainly focusing on the stablecoin market, especially one of the controversial points that the CLARITY Act did not pass this time, which is Brian Armstrong's belief that "stablecoins cannot earn interest" is fundamentally unfair. Even though the backing assets are interest bearing America Treasury short-term bonds, the interest can only stay with the issuer or the middle layer, and cannot be directly fed back to users. This will inevitably reduce the attractiveness to users.
Especially in the era of high interest rates, allowing users to hold a 0% substitute for the US dollar, but neighboring currency funds T-bills、 Even many Web2 cash managers can offer 4% to 5%, which is not a product experience issue, but rather forcing users to pay for compliance at opportunity cost. This is currently the most real pain point for compliant stablecoins. If they want to become payment tools or cash substitutes, regulators tend to manage them according to cash logic and do not want stablecoins to evolve into deposit substitutes or money fund substitutes, because once stablecoins are allowed to earn interest publicly, it is essentially withdrawing the core liability side (deposits) of the banking system.
Why do stablecoins on the chain seem to have no such problems? Because many on chain "stablecoins" do not actually have a "cash" positioning, but rather a "yield oriented US dollar asset" positioning. For example, Ondo Finance's own stablecoin USDY is a typical example, and its profit logic is based on the interest generated by Ondo's holdings of short-term US bonds. By earning interest on US bonds, holders can obtain basic returns on the chain that are close to those of US bonds.
So today, the fragmentation of the stablecoin market is becoming increasingly clear:
1. Compliant payment type stablecoin, emphasizing non interest bearing, clearing and compliance boundaries, with the goal of becoming a US dollar settlement layer.
2. Yield oriented stablecoins position themselves directly as asset management tools for US dollars, making US bond yields explicit.
Essentially, there is no right or wrong, only meeting user needs from a compliance and application perspective.
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