The impact of stablecoins on the banking sector appears to be “limited” in the current phase of the adoption cycle, but banks may face increasing competition and erosion of market share as the market capitalization of the stablecoin and tokenized real world assets (RWA) sectors increases.
“The use of stablecoins remains limited so far, but their market capitalization exceeded $300 billion at the end of last year,” Abhi Srivastava, vice president of Moody’s Investors Service Digital Economy Group, told Cointelegraph.
The role of stablecoins in payments, cross-border trade and onchain finance is “growing” despite their currently restricted role, Srivastava said, adding that existing payment systems in the U.S. are already “fast, cheap and trustworthy.” He said:
“At this stage, the risk of disruption to the banking sector appears limited. In the near term, US regulations prohibiting stablecoins from paying yields mean that they are unlikely to replace traditional deposits on a large scale in the domestic market.”
However, over time, the growing operate of stablecoins and tokenized risk-weighted assets, customary or physical financial assets represented on the blockchain by a token, could put “pressure” on the banking sector, leading to an outflow of deposits and reduced lending capacity, he said.
Stablecoin regulatory policy has become a warm topic among cryptocurrency industry executives and banking industry insiders, with concerns that profitable stablecoins could reduce banking market share, proving to be an obstacle to the CLARITY Cryptocurrency Market Structure Act in Congress.
Related: Stablecoins behave like currency markets when liquidity is shared: CEO of Eco
CLARITY Act stalled as banks fight yield-generating stablecoins
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, also known as the CLARITY Act, is a comprehensive cryptocurrency market regulatory framework that establishes an asset taxonomy, regulatory jurisdiction, and oversight of cryptocurrency markets.
It is currently stuck in Congress after a group of cryptocurrency companies, led by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, publicly expressed opposition to earlier drafts of the bill.
The lack of legal protection for open source software developers and the ban on the sale of income-generating stablecoins are some of the most controversial issues mentioned by opponents of legislation in the crypto industry.
US lawmakers and the White House have made several attempts to negotiate a bill acceptable to both the crypto industry and the banking lobby.
Earlier this month, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said he planned to release an updated bill that would be acceptable to both parties; However, according to reports, the bill was rejected Policyand has not yet been made publicly available.
However, other cryptocurrency industry executives and market analysts have warned that if the CLARITY Act is not passed, it could expose the cryptocurrency industry to future regulatory crackdowns from hostile lawmakers and officials.
Warehouse: Stablecoins will see explosive growth in 2025 as the world embraces the asset class
