CLARITY Act Yield Deal Sends Circle Up 18% as Banks Cry Foul
Circle Internet Group (CRCL) climbed 18% on May 4 after Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks released a bipartisan yield compromise for the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, pushing the stock’s year-to-date gain to roughly 25.73%. The deal drew an immediate public endorsement from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who posted three words on X: “Mark it up.” Markets read the room fast. Coinbase (COIN) rose 6.41%, BitGo jumped roughly 10%, and Robinhood (HOOD) added 4.22%, all against a broad equity backdrop where the S&P 500 fell 0.51% and the Nasdaq dropped 0.39%.
What the Compromise Actually Says
The agreement draws a hard line on passive yield. Stablecoin issuers cannot offer returns on dormant, idle balances. Rewards tied to active user participation remain permitted. That single distinction had paralysed the legislation for months, and resolving it was enough to push a bill that had stalled repeatedly back onto a credible timeline. Prediction market Polymarket now puts CLARITY Act passage in 2026 at 61% to 64%, depending on which snapshot you use, up sharply from the depths of the negotiation impasse. A committee markup could come as early as the week of May 11, with a Senate floor vote potentially landing between June and July.
Circle’s Chief Strategy Officer Dante Disparte publicly backed the framework, calling it “meaningful progress in the CLARITY Act negotiations.” Analyst Markus Thielen of 10x Research was equally direct, writing that “the latest compromise removes one of the final obstacles for the legislation” and that equity markets are beginning to price in potential winners. Circle, as a regulated issuer with USDC already expanding through Meta’s creator payments platform on Solana and Polygon, and with Visa broadening its stablecoin settlement infrastructure, fits that winner framing almost too neatly. Bitcoin breaking above $80,000 during the same session provided additional tailwind for the sector.
Bitcoin BTC$77,253.00▲1.44%
Ethereum ETH$2,107.85▲1.87%
Tether USDT$0.9991▲0.03%
BNB BNB$661.36▲1.72%
XRP XRP$1.35▲1.36%
USDC USDC$0.9998▲0.01%
Solana SOL$85.32▲1.47%
TRON TRX$0.3714▲1.93%
Figure Heloc FIGR_HELOC$1.03▲0.00%
Dogecoin DOGE$0.1023▲1.42%Banks Push Back, and Hard
The American Bankers Association, Bank Policy Institute, and Consumer Bankers Association moved quickly after the compromise text dropped. Their joint statement called the fix insufficient on deposit protection grounds, arguing the language still falls short of preventing meaningful risk to traditional bank deposits. They were notably silent when the deal first appeared on May 4, then found their voice by the morning of May 5. That timing is worth reading carefully. Silence followed by coordinated criticism suggests a lobbying posture, not a spontaneous reaction to new information.
ZeroStack CEO Daniel Reis-Faria offered a cooler read: the deal reduces investor uncertainty but has not resolved institutional hesitation yet. That framing is probably accurate. Sentiment has shifted, the narrative has shifted, and markets have priced it all in across roughly 48 hours. Whether the underlying legislation survives its committee markup intact is a different question entirely. Narrative and price move together on the way up. The banks know that, and right now they are trying to slow the story down before the vote locks it in.
