The latest version of the Clarity Act crypto law is mainly in the spotlight because of its stablecoin rules. In practice, decentralized finance (DeFi) and associated tokens may hit hardest, according to a report from 10x Research.
The core of the proposal is a ban on offering returns – or anything resembling them, such as rewards – on stablecoin balances. That effectively ends the idea of stablecoins as onchain savings products and redefines them as pure payment rails.
“This represents a clear recentralization of revenue,” wrote Markus Thielen, founder of 10xResearch. This is because the proposal rolls back returns on banks, money market funds and regulated wrappers, leaving crypto-native platforms with less room to compete on returns.
That shift could also hit DeFi, despite early hopes that it would be for the better.
The logic was that if centralized platforms couldn’t offer returns, users would move to the chain, Thielen said.
But that assumes DeFi escapes the same rules. In practice, the Clarity framework will likely expand to front-end interfaces and token models, especially where fee generation or governance begins to resemble parity, he said.
This puts a broad part of the sector in the spotlight. Decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap (UNI) and dYdX (DYDX), as well as lending protocols such as Aave and , could face tighter restrictions around how they operate and distribute value, the report argues. The result could be lower volumes, reduced liquidity and weaker demand for tokens.
On the other hand, the proposed regulation is “structurally bullish” for infrastructure players like Circle (CRCL) because it anchors stablecoins more deeply into the payment rails, Thielen said.