# 2026: A Watershed Year for Stablecoins—Policy Battles Intensify as February Becomes a Pivotal Legislative Window

February 12, 2026—According to Gate market data, BTC/USDT is currently trading at $67,800, up 1.2% over the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, Ethereum has fallen below the key psychological threshold of $2,000, now at $1,980, dropping its market cap to the 86th largest among global mainstream assets. During this period of cooling market sentiment, one sector, dubbed the "new DeFi infrastructure," is bucking the trend: yield-bearing stablecoins. Just yesterday, the White House convened its second consecutive round of meetings focused on stablecoins. On one side, banks are holding firm against any notion of "yield." On the other, the market has already voted with $140 billion in circulating supply. The yield-generating nature of stablecoins is now undergoing a transition from grassroots innovation to the growing pains of becoming mainstream financial infrastructure. ## White House Push and Pull: Why Are Banks Defending the "No Yield" Red Line? Participants described the February 11 meeting as "smaller in scale and more efficient." Unlike the polite stalemates of the first meeting, banks have, for the first time, shown willingness to consider "any proposed exemptions." But this doesn’t mean the disagreements are resolved. According to leaked documents obtained by Cointelegraph, traditional financial powerhouses—represented by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and the American Bankers Association—continue to insist on a strict "prohibition principle." This principle not only bans any direct or indirect benefit from holding payment stablecoins, but also emphasizes strict enforcement of anti-evasion measures. The banks’ core logic is that once stablecoins offer meaningful yields, they shift from being "payment tools" to "savings alternatives." This would directly threaten the banks’ low-cost deposit base, undermining their capacity to lend to the real economy. The crypto industry counters that the claim of "harming public lending" is simply not true. Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer, Stuart Alderoty, struck a relatively optimistic tone after the meeting: "A spirit of compromise is emerging, and both parties remain aligned on the need for sensible crypto market structure legislation." Currently, negotiations have shifted from "whether to allow yield" to "defining the scope of permitted activities." Crypto companies want broad definitions to preserve room for innovation—such as points, cashback, and on-chain governance rewards—while banks advocate for an extremely narrow, strictly defined list. The U.S. government aims to wrap up this work by the end of February, leaving just two weeks for both sides to reach a compromise. ## The Unignorable $140 Billion: The Market Has Already "Decoupled" While Washington debates what stablecoins should be, the market has already provided its answer. A recent report from Gate Research shows that the total supply of yield-bearing stablecoins has soared from nearly zero at the end of 2023 to $140 billion at the start of 2026. This isn’t the "zero-sum" liquidity mining rotation of the DeFi summer—it’s a structural migration. BlackRock’s BUIDL has attracted over $10 billion, while institutional products like Hashnote USYC and Maple SyrupUSDC are becoming the standard gateways for traditional capital to enter the blockchain. Even more significant changes are happening at the protocol level. Lending protocols like Aave and Morpho are evolving into "on-chain banks." They’re moving beyond simple matchmaking services to building sustainable business models through interest rate spreads. Yield-bearing stablecoins are no longer just speculative tools—they’re becoming core collateral, serving as the foundational liquidity layer for the entire DeFi ecosystem. This marks a subtle yet decisive turning point: even before policies are finalized, the balance sheets of traditional and decentralized finance are already beginning to merge in substance. ## The Other Side of the Market: From "Hodling" to "Yield"—A Shift in User Mindset Beyond policy debates, changes in user behavior are equally noteworthy. On February 11, USD stablecoin United Stables (U), in partnership with wallet providers, launched its first staking campaign. The incentive pool totals 2 million U, with annualized yields reaching up to 20% during the event. U’s strategic pivot from "transaction medium" to "yield asset" is not unique. As wallet layers, trading platforms, and lending protocols become more interconnected, stablecoin holders are no longer content with static balances. Idle funds should generate returns—a right taken for granted in traditional finance, now being realized in crypto through smart contracts. While the sky-high APY in U’s staking campaign clearly reflects early promotional incentives, it highlights an irreversible trend: users are unwilling to sacrifice yield for the sake of safety alone. If a bank-dominated stablecoin framework mandates zero yield, the market will simply move funds more rapidly to offshore or non-compliant yield protocols. ## The Global Regulatory Puzzle: Not Just an American Dilemma It’s important to note that not all jurisdictions are embracing this transformation. Just before the White House meeting, eight Chinese regulatory agencies—including the People’s Bank of China and the China Securities Regulatory Commission—jointly released the 2026 update of the "Notice on Further Preventing and Handling Risks Related to Virtual Currencies." The notice explicitly states that stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies, when used in circulation, effectively perform some functions of legal tender. Without approval, no entity, domestic or foreign, may issue RMB-pegged stablecoins overseas. This means the compliance path for yield-bearing stablecoins will be highly fragmented on a global scale. In the US and Europe, the debate centers on "how yield is distributed." In other major economies, the question is still "whether such assets can exist at all." For global platforms like Gate, this presents both a compliance challenge and a test of their ability to identify quality assets and serve users across diverse regions. ## What’s Next: Where Is the "Tipping Point" for Banks’ Stance? Back to the core question: Will the banking sector truly compromise? Judging by the progress in the February 11 meeting, banks have shifted from "total rejection" to "strictly limited exemptions." This is a defensive concession—better to keep the game within familiar rules than be bypassed entirely. The real breakthrough may come from "segregated operations." The future regulatory framework for stablecoins may adopt a dual structure: one category for pure "payment stablecoins," strictly prohibiting yield and used mainly for everyday transactions, enjoying streamlined compliance; and another for "yield-bearing stablecoins," classified as securities or money market fund products, subject to full fundraising, disclosure, and investor suitability requirements. If this path materializes, banks will no longer cling to the abstract "no yield" principle, but instead compete for custody, distribution, and asset allocation rights over yield-bearing products. At that point, banks will shift from obstructors to participants, and real resistance will begin to dissolve. ## Conclusion Bitcoin continues to test the $67,000 level, with put options accounting for over 37% of options market volume, and single-day notional put option trades exceeding $1 billion. Derivatives data suggests that major institutions remain cautious about the market’s direction over the next one to two months. Ironically, it’s during these periods of macro uncertainty that infrastructure-level narratives show the greatest resilience across cycles. The evolution of yield-bearing stablecoins marks crypto finance’s coming-of-age, shifting from "trading-driven" to "balance sheet-driven" models. Policymakers can debate whether to call returns "interest" or "rewards," "yield" or "cashback," but they can’t reverse the fundamental drive for efficient capital allocation. The banking sector may delay legislation, but it cannot stop $140 billion from finding its own path through code. For investors, rather than betting on the timing of regulatory changes, it’s wiser to focus on protocol-level assets deeply integrated with players like BlackRock and Aave—those capable of capturing real interest rate spreads. Regardless of the White House’s final wording, true foundational liquidity will always remain scarce.