Jamie Dimon said on Friday that the latest draft of the Clarity Act could fall apart unless lawmakers rewrite it to address banks’ objections over stablecoin rules and rewards. The JPMorgan Chase chief told Business that he was not satisfied with the bill as written and argued it would let firms pay interest on deposits, stablecoins or similar products without the protections banks say should apply.
Dimon’s warning lands as Senate negotiators try to stitch together competing versions of the crypto market structure bill before the full chamber takes it up. He said bluntly that “the banks will not accept it that way,” a sign that the fight over stablecoin rewards is no longer a side issue but a hurdle that could slow the legislation again after it stalled in Washington earlier this year despite broad bipartisan interest.
The dispute reaches beyond one bill. The Clarity Act would set the rules for how federal securities and commodities regulators oversee digital assets, but lawmakers are also wrestling with stablecoin issuers, consumer protections, reserve requirements and whether crypto companies should be allowed to offer yield-bearing products that look a lot like bank accounts. Coinbase and its chief executive, Brian Armstrong, say traditional banks are trying to curb stablecoin rewards programs. Banking executives say if crypto firms offer bank-like products, they should face bank-like oversight.
Dimon has been one of the most forceful voices in that fight. During meetings at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, he reportedly told Armstrong, “You are full of s---,” after a series of direct clashes with the Coinbase founder. On Friday, he went further, saying, “I’m not worried about stablecoins but if it happened I’m telling you I will have nothing to do with it and it will eventually blow up.”
The immediate next step is the merge between the Senate Banking Committee’s version of the bill, advanced earlier this month, and the Senate Agriculture Committee’s version, which moved earlier this year. If lawmakers cannot settle the rewards issue and the broader question of what protections these products should carry, the Clarity Act could again lose momentum before it ever reaches the House, much less President Donald Trump’s desk. For now, Dimon is betting the banks can still force a rewrite.
