12th February 2026 > > The FT again & the CLARITY Act.

tl;dr

The FT does embarrass itself on regular occasions. An impasse is preventing progress for the CLARITY Act.

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Stop-start on the old ETFs, with another day of outflows yesterday breaking the three-day winning streak, which is a shame. A retest of $50k is still likely in my opinion.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – The FT

A brief follow-up to the comment earlier this week about the FT (https://www.curiouscryptos.com/post/10th-february-2026-leverage-boo-ft-boo-japan-hurrah):

h/t Nick Illston.

Like I say, hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – The CLARITY Act

A major sticking point in the safe passage of the CLARITY Act is an issue over whether holders of stablecoins can receive interest-like rewards for doing so.

The issuers of US regulated stablecoins must hold cash or cash-like equivalents collateralised at slightly over 100% against the liabilities incurred in creating the stablecoin. Held mostly in the form of money-market funds, the issuer is receiving interest payments on those funds which theoretically could be shared with the holders of the stablecoins. To put it mildly, TradFi banks are upset about this possibility. TradFi is also against the idea that intermediaries (e.g. centralised cryptocurrency exchanges) can pay any interest-like rewards for depositing stablecoins with the intermediary.

Yesterday, a meeting was held at the White House with representatives from the crypto industry and TradFi to see if there is any way forward. TradFi arrived with a written set of “prohibition principles”:

The interesting comment here is “Any proposed exemptions from the prohibition must be extremely limited in scope so as not to undermine the prohibition and must not drive deposit flight that would undercut Main Street lending.” (Emphasis mine).

In effect, TradFi is saying that its product in the form of deposit taking, and the (slow) transfer of money, is inferior to that offered by stablecoins, and therefore TradFi would lose out in a straight fight on a level playing field.

That is quite an extraordinary admission, and one which by its nature should – in a free and fair world – ensure that the banks are subject to the fierce competition that stablecoins could provide. In our imperfect world, with the vast lobbying industry funded by TradFi, the right and moral decision is not going to be taken.

…

Let me share with you one recent experience I have had that would have been immeasurably improved using stablecoins and smart contracts.

I signed up to a research resource focussed on equities (not a strong point of mine) which came with a “guarantee” of my money back if, within thirty days, I decided the service was not for me. I made that decision within two hours of starting to read the research, and so I sent off the obligatory cancellation email which was met with a standard auto-response. Having heard nothing for a week I repeated the process. This time I got a response asking me to call the office to discuss how I could better use the service, an offer I flatly refused to contemplate. After a lot of email ping-pong (“NO, I DO NOT WANT TO DISCUSS THIS FURTHER ON THE PHONE” was a frequent refrain of mine) I finally got an agreement to refund the subscription costs.

When I initially paid, the sterling equivalent of the dollar cost (the research firm is based in the US) immediately left the company bank account, was instantly exchanged for dollars at mid-market with no fee (I love Revolut) and sent to the correspondent bank in New York within seconds.

My refund took over six weeks to process.

There is a simple way to take all the pain out of that experience. The form to sign-up to the service would be linked to a smart contract. After instant payment using a USD stablecoin (the exchange of sterling fiat for that USD stablecoin would be handled by Revolut in the same way as the FX trade) the smart contract would have the option for me to reject the service with a single mouse click within the allotted thirty days followed by an immediate refund of the stablecoin to my Revolut account which is then instantly converted back to sterling fiat. All the fiddly stuff with crypto wallets, smart contracts, and the use of cryptos in the form of stablecoins would be handled behind the scenes by Revolut linking to the crypto payment rails. A user need never know one jot about blockchain technology to use this service.

Every step is instantaneous with virtually zero costs (less than a cent or so) with the smart contract guarantee of the money back avoiding slimy and annoying salespeople.

What is not to like?

…

Despite the obvious impasse in the current negotiations, the post-meeting comments were all constructive. My feeling is that any compromise that can be sought and gained now should be accepted to further the greater cause of getting the CLARITY Act onto the books as soon as possible.

In short order, some of the biggest TradFi banks will launch their own stablecoins, at which point they will suddenly start funding the lobbying industry to allow interest-like rewards to be paid to holders of USD stablecoins to further enhance their dominance over the smaller banks. Let TradFi win that battle for us later in 2026.