Treasury Secretary Bessent presses Senate on CLARITY Act as global crypto rules tighten

Stablecoin yield remains the central U.S. fight

The biggest unresolved issue is whether stablecoin issuers should be allowed to pay yield or interest. Banks, some crypto firms and Senate Democrats have objected for different reasons, turning stablecoin design into the core bottleneck. Banking groups argue that return-bearing dollar tokens could pull deposits out of banks without being subject to the same capital, insurance and supervisory rules, while crypto advocates argue yield is central to user value and international competitiveness.

A White House Council of Economic Advisers analysis on April 8 weakened one of the main anti-yield arguments. TD Cowen’s readout said allowing or banning stablecoin yield would have only a limited effect on traditional bank lending, with a ban increasing lending by just $2.1 billion, or 0.02% of total loans, while doing little to strengthen bank stability. Coinbase had already withdrawn support for the CLARITY Act in January over language that could restrict stablecoin-yield programs, and a bipartisan Senate compromise floated with the White House last month reportedly upset Coinbase while a newer revision is now drawing resistance from the banking industry instead.

Bessent sharpened his criticism of holdouts by calling some opponents “industry nihilists.” One account said he suggested that people resisting any workable framework should consider relocating to places such as El Salvador rather than blocking a U.S. market-structure law. Several pro-crypto Senate Democrats have separately said President Donald Trump’s personal crypto businesses must be outlawed or otherwise addressed before they will support the measure.

Supporters of the push say roughly one in six Americans now hold digital assets and that the global crypto market is worth about $3 trillion. Forecasts on passage still diverge. Polymarket traders assigned roughly 63% to 72% odds of enactment in 2026, while TD Cowen’s Jaret Seiberg projected only about a one-in-three chance this year, with implementation potentially slipping to 2029 if the current blockages continue.

Treasury, FinCEN, OFAC, FDIC, OCC and SEC move on parallel U.S. tracks

The Treasury on April 8 also advanced a joint FinCEN and OFAC proposal under the GENIUS Act for permitted payment stablecoin issuers. The proposal would require Anti-Money Laundering and counter-terrorist-financing programs, sanctions-compliance systems, risk identification and mitigation measures, and internal controls backed by auditing and testing. It would apply to issuers that are subsidiaries of insured depository institutions or entities authorized by a federal or state regulator to issue stablecoins, and it would create a notice-and-consultation process with primary federal payment stablecoin regulators for major supervisory actions.

Bessent said, “President Trump is strengthening American leadership in digital financial technology,” and added, “This proposal will protect the U.S. financial system from national security threats without hindering American companies’ ability to forge ahead in the payment stablecoin ecosystem.” FinCEN said it would not take major action unless there is a “significant or systemic failure.” The proposal sits inside a broader compliance runway that runs through January 2027 and already requires stablecoins to be fully backed by U.S. dollars or similarly liquid assets and to undergo annual audits in certain cases. Public comments are due within 60 days.

Other U.S. agencies moved in parallel. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation proposed reserve-related requirements on April 7 and said stablecoins would not be “subject to federal deposit insurance.” The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had already asserted jurisdiction the prior month over certain issuers, including subsidiaries of national banks or federal savings associations. The Securities and Exchange Commission separately named David Woodcock as director of the Division of Enforcement on April 8. Chair Paul Atkins said, “I am incredibly pleased to have David rejoin the SEC at this critical time, as we continue to focus on the types of misconduct that inflict the greatest harm to investors.”

The SEC said Woodcock had previously overseen investigations in nearly every major area of its enforcement program. His background includes leading the SEC’s Fort Worth office from 2011 to 2015, serving as assistant general counsel at ExxonMobil, practicing securities litigation at Jones Day, and teaching for more than a decade at Texas A&M University. His crypto-related experience includes co-authoring commentary in 2017 on the SEC’s first ICO enforcement action and later helping write 2025 commentary describing enforcement under Atkins as a “sea change.”

Hong Kong and Japan advance licensing and market-rule changes

Hong Kong granted its first stablecoin issuer licenses on April 10, 2026, approving Anchorpoint Financial and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s regime. Anchorpoint Financial was identified as the stablecoin joint venture formed by Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong, Animoca Brands and Hong Kong Telecommunications. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was described as HSBC’s Hong Kong banking entity and one of the city’s three note-issuing banks.

The Hong Kong framework requires fiat-referenced stablecoin issuers to obtain a license and comply with rules covering reserve backing, redemption, governance and Anti-Money Laundering controls. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority also has powers to investigate violations and impose fines, suspensions and license revocations. The announcement came after weeks of unconfirmed speculation over potential recipients and followed an earlier March timeline referenced by Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Executive Eddie Yue. The authority said on April 1 that it was still actively advancing the process before publicly naming the first approved issuers on April 10.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said the licensed issuers are expected to launch operations in the coming months. Yue said the regime gives issuers a regulated framework to operate in Hong Kong alongside safeguards focused on user protection and risk management.

Japan amended the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act to classify crypto assets as financial instruments, moving them away from their earlier treatment under the Payment and Settlement Act as primarily a means of payment. The overhaul introduces a ban on insider trading and other activity involving undisclosed information in crypto markets, requires annual disclosure by issuers, and strengthens penalties for unregistered crypto exchanges.

Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said the Japanese reforms are meant to expand access to growth capital while ensuring market integrity and investor safety. Japan is also exploring legalization of crypto exchange-traded funds by 2028 and is weighing a reduction in crypto tax rates to a flat 20%, with Nomura Holdings and SBI Holdings expected to play leading roles in crypto-linked investment products if that strategy moves forward.

South Korea, France, Thailand and Poland tighten scrutiny

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission tightened exchange controls on April 6 after Bithumb’s February payout error, ordering major exchanges to reconcile internal ledgers against actual crypto holdings every five minutes and fully build those systems by the end of May. Before the incident, three of the five largest exchanges reportedly reconciled balances only once every 24 hours. Exchanges must now halt trading automatically if major mismatches appear, while outside accounting firms will move from quarterly to monthly audits and report holdings by wallet. The rules apply across Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax after a meeting that also included DAXA.

The Bithumb incident was described as a massive input error in which an employee entered 620,000 BTC as a reward for 249 users instead of 620,000 won, causing the exchange to distribute Bitcoin worth about $40 billion, or roughly 13 times more Bitcoin than Bithumb actually held. The Financial Services Commission found “deficiencies in Bithumb’s internal control system” and began a legal review for sanctions. Bithumb was already facing separate action from South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit, which imposed a six-month partial business suspension from March 27 to Sept. 26 and a 36.8 billion won, or $24.6 million, fine after authorities found 45,772 transactions with unregistered overseas exchanges and failures in customer-identification verification.

South Korea also narrowed virtual-asset withdrawal-delay exemptions on April 8 after authorities found that criminals exploited inconsistent exchange rules to move stolen funds before banks or police could react. Between June and September 2025, 1,490 of 2,526 fraud cases, or 59% of the total, occurred in accounts exempted from withdrawal delays. Those exempted accounts were linked to 170.5 billion won, representing 75.5% of the total 225.7 billion won lost, and in some cases the laundering route took less than an hour. Regulators said customers qualifying for exceptions would be cut to less than 1% of existing users and added that they would “minimize consumer inconvenience” in legitimate urgent cases while they “regularly reconsider the adequacy of the standards to prevent new bypass methods from occurring.”

France advanced a tax-focused crypto bill on April 8 after it passed first reading in the National Assembly. The bill would require taxpayers to declare every self-hosted wallet holding more than €5,000, or about $5,900, as part of a wider law targeting social and tax fraud. The French government said the measure follows a strong 2025 for tax enforcement, when reported amounts rose by €249 million and collections exceeded €17 billion in taxes and penalties. Results from tax-credit refund audits increased 148%. France’s watchdog warned, “Taxpayers will have to anticipate increased transparency regarding their digital assets, under threat of sanctions comparable to those for undeclared work or unreported foreign bank accounts.”

The French proposal still requires Senate review and approval by a joint committee, possibly in May, before final adoption. Its rollout would depend on bylaws setting monitoring and audit procedures, making implementation more likely toward the end of 2026 or early 2027.

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission on April 8 proposed widening shareholder-approval rules to cover not only major shareholders in crypto operators but also the people financing or backing those shareholders directly or indirectly. The regulator said the goal is to ensure operators are funded from legitimate sources rather than money tied to unlawful activity that could create legal, reputational and credibility risks. It said, “The provision of significant funding shall include guarantors, contractual arrangements, or investments in any instruments that result in the financial supporter having the status of, or acting in substance as, a funding provider to such major shareholders.” Public consultation runs through April 22, 2026.

The Thai proposal would apply both to direct acquisitions in crypto business operators and to acquisitions in legal entities that hold shares in those operators. Ministries, departments and public organizations are carved out because, as the Thai SEC said, “These entities are already subject to government supervision and oversight.” The measure sits within a wider anti-money-laundering push that included a gray-money campaign launched in January and freezes on 10,000 accounts by local crypto platforms working with the Thai SEC and the Thai Digital Asset Operators Trade Association.

Poland faced a separate pressure point after reports of a possible liquidity crisis at Zondacrypto, one of the oldest and largest coin-trading platforms in Central and Eastern Europe. The claims said the exchange had lost more than 99% of its reserves, with Bitcoin holdings falling from more than 55 BTC in August 2024 to 0.18 BTC in March 2026, and that users had reported withdrawal delays or inability to access funds.

Chief Executive Przemyslaw Kral denied those claims, called them false, said the platform remained stable, cited 4,500 BTC in reserves as of April 1, and attributed the reported issues to temporary technical problems. The dispute intensified criticism of Poland’s delayed implementation of European Union crypto rules and triggered an investigation as pressure mounted for national legislation aligned with EU standards.