On May 2, 2026, this originally uneventful Thursday was seen by many practitioners as the first sign of movement after months of stalemate regarding the CLARITY Act. This cryptocurrency regulatory framework, which had successfully passed the House of Representatives and is now stalled in the corridors of the Senate, finally reached a compromise on the most challenging "yield provisions"—the tug-of-war concerning whether holders of dollar-pegged assets can receive returns similar to deposit interest has been put on hold. According to the currently disclosed proposal, trading platforms are prohibited from offering returns equivalent to traditional bank deposit interest, but a narrow path based on actual usage behavior to provide rewards remains: no discussions of “easy earnings,” only “use more, get more.” This precisely addresses traditional banks' core fears of “high-interest siphoning deposits,” reducing one reason for the Senate, which has long viewed this provision as a red line, to block the further advancement of the bill. Alex Thorn, research director at Galaxy Research, assesses that CLARITY has entered a critical legislative phase in the Senate, yet it remains in a 50-50 coin toss situation—he estimates a "50% probability of becoming law this year," signifying that the risks of opportunity and failure are weighed equally, and any change in a committee schedule or a misstep in party coordination could alter the outcome.

Coincidentally, at the same time the regulatory text was brought back to the table for discussion, an emblematic echo emerged on the industry narrative level—Zhao Changpeng announced that his book "Freedom of Money" would hold its first offline signing event in Dubai. With limited copies of the physical book, this event was relatively small, serving more as a “test water” appearance: from the crash of LUNA to the downfall of FTX, and his own entanglement in investigations, incarceration, and full pardon, these past few years' pivotal moments in the global discourse are condensed into a book, now lining up for signatures in the real world. While the regulatory framework seeks new balances in Washington's meeting rooms, the central figure of previous storms queues up with readers for photos in a Dubai bookstore—two seemingly unrelated news items, when pieced together, resemble a vaguely warming temperature curve: the cryptocurrency world simultaneously accepts the reality of being "written into the law" while attempting to regain the right to narrate its own story.

Repainting the Yield Red Line: Compromise Between Banks and Exchanges

In Washington, what truly tears at this bill is not abstract technical terms but the oldest financial interests. Traditional banks almost immediately targeted the "interest-bearing accounts" of cryptocurrency exchanges for holders of fiat-pegged tokens: if users can enjoy the convenience of entering and exiting at any time while receiving returns far exceeding those of regular savings, then the funds that should remain in the bank's balance sheet would gradually be siphoned away. They continuously emphasized during lobbying that high-yield products would disrupt the traditional deposit system, thus needing strict limits or even outright bans on such token yield arrangements, leaving “deposits” confined to bank branches and compliant savings accounts.

The deadlock was finally broken by a vague yet crucial red line. Around May 2026, a compromise on the yield provisions took shape: reports indicate that under the new framework, returns equivalent to traditional bank deposit interest are no longer permitted, but there remains room for rewards based on actual usage—tokens cannot be marketed as high-interest deposit accounts, but users can still be incentivized in some form during actual usage, payment, or trading. Specific legal text and numerical boundaries have yet to be made public, and the outside world can only sketch a rough outline: yields have shifted from “passive holding interest” to “active usage rewards.”

Coinbase was the first to come forward to endorse this red line. The company announced it had reached a compromise with traditional banks regarding the yield provisions for such tokens, retaining arrangements to offer rewards based on actual usage. Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad subsequently stated publicly that this compromise resolved the most critical differences between both sides while not completely shutting the door on "usage-based rewards." For cryptocurrency platforms, this means winning a principled battle but also needing to redesign products from scratch within the new framework—those past yield accounts that attracted users with "high annual rates" must learn to redesign around usage scenarios and long-term engagement without touching the red line of bank deposit rates.

Senate Gate Opening: The Gamble Behind a 50% Passage Probability

The moment a compromise was reached on yield provisions, what was truly being moved wasn’t the product form of any platform, but the CLARITY Act itself, which had long been stuck at the Senate door. Previously, this bill aimed at establishing a unified regulatory framework for the U.S. cryptocurrency market had crossed the House of Representatives but became mired in the Senate stage over disputes regarding “whether holders of pegged assets can receive returns and how much they can receive,” leaving it stagnant in the corridors in a dilemma. Traditional banks worried that high-yield products would siphon off deposits fiercely lobbied to tighten or even ban these yield arrangements; crypto companies see yields as a critical tool for user education and ecosystem building. Both sides were defending their bottom lines, and the bill's advancement was consequently put on pause.

With a compromise found on the yield framework, the Senate's gate did not suddenly swing wide open but instead entered a moment filled with uncertainty—a "coin toss moment." Alex Thorn, research director at Galaxy Research, assesses that CLARITY has now entered a critical legislative stage in the Senate, estimating the probability of becoming law this year at about "50%"—this is not a declaration of certainty but a public probability bet: one half suggests that the U.S. will finally establish systemic regulation for the cryptocurrency market; the other half indicates that various political constraints, industry lobbying, and election cycles could converge to render this hard-won compromise ultimately futile. For market participants, 50% is sufficient to begin planning ahead while being high enough to necessitate serious consideration of how to recalibrate business and compliance expectations if this year also ends in failure.

Even more paradoxically, the timetable itself remains uncertain. A single source stated that the Senate Banking Committee might consider CLARITY as early as May 11, 2026, indicating that the bill may have already been placed on the internal agenda, but this date currently lacks formal confirmation from multiple parties, and the outside world cannot treat it as a fixed hearing schedule. Looking forward from this moment, the compromise merely pushed the bill from a state of "stagnation" back onto a trajectory of "possibility." Every subsequent step resembles navigating a stage where schedules and narratives can change at any time: whether senators are willing to truly prioritize this matter and whether the industry and banking camps may spark further waves on the details will directly push this "50% coin" toward starkly different outcomes.

Who Wins and Loses at the Table: Issuers, Exchanges, and Banks

For issuers of cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat currency, this compromise feels more like a "yield method transformation order" rather than a simple “shutdown button.” Reports suggest that the new framework only blocks fixed returns equivalent to traditional bank deposit interest while leaving reward space "based on actual usage." This means that issuers are not entirely stripped of their rights to distribute interest-related income but are forced to shift from “earning by balance” to “incentivizing by behavior”: the portion of interest income that can be directly returned to holders must be delineated as rewards tied to specific uses, such as payments, settlements, and on-chain movements. Meanwhile, compliance costs will significantly rise—how to prove that their reward algorithms are not disguises for deposit interest, without the law being further detailed, will force issuers to invest in legal, risk control, and product teams in advance, repeatedly refining the boundaries between "allowed incentives" and "deposit-like products."

Exchanges are the direct implementers of this mechanism. Traditionally, products that allow users to “deposit and earn interest” will face structural constraints, but under the framework of “usage-based rewards," exchanges gained another narrative thread: no longer promising a bank-like interest figure to users, but embedding returns into specific scenarios like payment perks, transaction fee discounts, and on-chain transfer rebates. Coinbase has publicly accepted this compromise and emphasized that it is precisely this usage-based reward space that is vital to its business model. For other platforms, the challenge lies in how to reconstruct the previously simple and intuitive “deposit and earn interest” into a whole set of explainable, auditable, and sufficiently attractive usage incentive systems within the regulatory red lines while avoiding regulatory classification as "disguised deposit interest" in their promotional materials. During this phase before the bill is finalized, any design resembles a "trial version," needing continual adjustments based on the final regulatory clarifications.

The traditional banks stand on the other side of the table. They previously lobbied vigorously to limit or even prohibit cryptocurrency platforms from providing yield to these asset holders, fearing that high-return products would siphon deposits; now, what they received was merely a compromise result of "blocking bank-like interest while permitting usage-based rewards." After the compromise took effect, banks can continue to exploit the details to push regulators to tighten the scope of "usage-based rewards" as much as possible; alternatively, they may choose another route: developing their own digital products, or through custodial, clearing, and payment collaborations, bind to compliant cryptocurrency platforms, keeping the funds that might otherwise flow out within their controlled systems. Which path will be adopted by more institutions will largely depend on the final execution details and regulatory interpretations of the CLARITY Act—before this "50% coin" lands, wins and losses are just a mid-game chip movement rather than a final settlement.

From Regulatory Shadows to Signing Scene: CZ's Return to the Stage

At the same time that the CLARITY Act is being fiercely debated in Washington, on another narrative front, a once "defendant main character" begins to return to the spotlight. On May 2, 2026, Zhao Changpeng announced that his new book "Freedom of Money" would hold its first offline signing event in Dubai, and due to the limited number of physical books, this event was intentionally controlled to a relatively restrained scale. Different from the tedious textual arguments in congressional hearings, at the signing table in Dubai, he reflects on the past decade's industry storms with pages rather than testimonies: from personal immigration and entrepreneurship experiences to the establishment of Binance from scratch and its attempts to navigate various jurisdictions during global expansion, all intertwine into a long shot structured by time and crisis.

What genuinely gives this book a quality of "self-narration under regulatory clouds" are those chapters capable of changing the industry's trajectory—how the collapse of LUNA/UST shattered market trust, how the FTX and SBF cases rewrote the power landscape in just weeks, and where Binance stood and what choices it made during these fracture moments. In more sensitive chapters, he directly recounts the process of confronting investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC, piecing together fragments that outsiders could only glimpse from indictments and settlement agreements into a continuous narrative from the insider's perspective. The book also details his experiences of incarceration and subsequently receiving a full pardon, which pushes the tension between an industry leader and the regulatory and judicial systems to the forefront: from being a subject of investigation, to losing freedom, and arriving at a legal "zero," the trajectory of personal fate closely overlaps with the U.S. regulatory swing from "strong enforcement" to "rule-making."

Thus, when the offline signing event in Dubai coincides with the critical progress of the CLARITY Act in the Senate at the same time, the cryptocurrency industry sees a contrasting picture of two judicial narratives: on one side is the U.S. attempting to encapsulate the industry within a systemic framework, while on the other side, in a more open jurisdiction, a symbolic figure who has undergone investigation, imprisonment, and pardon faces the public once again, recounting his history of tug-of-war with regulation. For many practitioners, this signifies not just personal image restoration but also a signal—after extreme events, judicial shocks, and rule redefinitions, the industry is attempting to rewrite the narrative of "passively responding to regulation" into a new script of "continuing to exist under the rules."

The Regulatory Game Is Not Over: The Next Round Between Crypto and Wall Street

The compromise surrounding the yield provisions is, essentially, a "ceasefire agreement": traditional banks no longer face a competitor that can directly seize deposit interest margins, while platforms represented by Coinbase retain room for designing incentives within "real usage scenarios." The most challenging divergences at the Senate stage have been dismantled, allowing CLARITY to return to the agenda from a long-standing inactive folder—this unlocks technical space for the bill's advancement in the Senate and eases the direct conflict between banks and cryptocurrency platforms on a psychological level. However, it must be recognized that what has changed is merely one puzzle piece of the yield, not that the bill has successfully passed.

Alex Thorn's estimated "50% probability of passing this year" sounds more like a splash of cold water: this means that the weights of legislative success and failure are almost equal, and any shift in the hearing direction or any text revision could rewrite the coin's outcomes. The next variables that need continuous tracking include whether the Senate Banking Committee truly schedules a review and how the text will be tightened or loosened regarding security obligations, market structure, and other directions. If CLARITY ultimately lands, it will likely resemble previous U.S. cryptocurrency regulatory frameworks, serving as a reference model for other jurisdictions crafting local rules—whether by following, amending, or intentionally "counter-operating" will revolve around it. This demonstration effect will not only influence the legislative rhythms of various countries but may also reshape the market's judgment on "regulatory predictability" in the medium to long term: the clearer the rules, the better for long-term funds and institutional participants to form stable expectations; conversely, if this game falters in the Senate, the dominant narrative of global regulation will become even more dispersed, and the next round between crypto and Wall Street will unfold on a more fragmented stage.

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