Stablecoin markets recorded weekly net inflows of $1.7 billion last week, a 414.5% increase from the prior week that lifted the 30-day average to roughly $162.5 million in daily inflows and coincided with about a 6.3% rise in onchain activity, Messari data show. Average transaction size declined as volumes grew, pointing to broader retail participation, after a period that included only about $249 million in weekly inflows two weeks earlier and roughly $4.4 billion in net outflows over the 30 days ending February 18. The policy backdrop includes the CLARITY Act advancing in the House in July 2025 to outline a digital-asset framework and the GENIUS Act enacted in July 2025 to regulate stablecoins and restrict issuers from paying yield solely for holding a token while allowing third-party rewards tied to balances, with President Trump publicly criticizing banks for slowing progress. Messari notes that ongoing debate over yield-bearing stablecoins and broader market-structure legislation, alongside demand for settlement assets such as USDC and USDT, is keeping market participants focused on how regulatory clarity could shape future issuance, user incentives, and overall crypto liquidity.

Ripple could become the next crypto-native company to obtain direct access to the U.S. Federal Reserve's payment system following Kraken, tech analyst and entrepreneur Paul Barron said. Kraken, through its banking subsidiary Kraken Financial, became the first crypto firm to receive a Federal Reserve master account for an initial one-year trial, allowing it to transact directly with the central bank via Fedwire and FedNow without using traditional commercial banks. Barron noted that Ripple has formally applied for a Fed master account, obtained a National Trust Bank Charter in December 2025, and is working with its RLUSD stablecoin, which he said would achieve bank-scale settlement if granted direct Fed access. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse estimated an 80% probability that the CLARITY Act, which passed the House but remains stalled in the Senate over stablecoin yield clauses, will be adopted before the end of April 2026.

Eric Trump criticized banks on March 4 for what he called "antiretail, anticonsumer, and antiAmerican" efforts to block stablecoin yield products targeting 4–5%+ returns, according to comments shared on X. The criticism follows Kraken becoming the first crypto-native firm to gain access to the Federal Reserve's payment rails after a five-year application process, a move strongly opposed by the American Bankers Association, which warned the decision could raise financial stability risks. Prediction platform Polymarket now shows a 71% chance of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026, down from 78% over the past two days amid growing friction between banks, the crypto sector and the Trump administration.

Negotiations over stablecoin reward provisions in the U.S. CLARITY Act have stalled as banks reject a White House compromise, citing risks that deposits could shift from traditional banks to higher-yield digital dollars, Coingape and Cointelegraph report. Negotiators are weighing caps on reward rates or dollar amounts, stricter reserve and segregation rules, and enhanced consumer-protection and anti-money-laundering measures, with law firm Baker McKenzie describing the process as entering a more technically complex second phase focused on differentiating issuer, platform, and protocol-level returns. Standard Chartered analysts estimate that broadly permitting stablecoin rewards could drive up to $500 billion in cumulative bank deposit outflows by end-2028, a scenario the American Bankers Association says underscores financial-stability risks, while Coinbase and CEO Brian Armstrong criticize current drafts as favoring incumbent banks and limiting competitive, compliant stablecoins, Fox Business reports. The White House is urging a deal, and Senate Democrats have faulted Republicans for advancing GOP-drafted language without sufficient bipartisan input, while committee staff continue to negotiate reward caps, issuer-versus-platform obligations, and disclosure standards, with the stablecoin title seen as key to broader market-structure progress, according to The Block and Yahoo.

Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis reported that cryptocurrency transactions tied to human trafficking rose at least 85% year-over-year in 2025, with annual values reaching hundreds of millions of dollars. The study, focusing on labor exploitation in Southeast Asian scam compounds and sex trafficking networks, found most payments used U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, often facilitated via Telegram-based black market escrow channels including "New Coin Guarantee" and the now-closed "Potato Guarantee." Chainalysis and partner data show a large share of sex trafficking-related transfers route to organizations controlling many women and minors, typically in ticket sizes of $1,000–$10,000 for recurring transactions and over $10,000 for nearly half of cross-border payments, while child sexual abuse material transactions, still largely conducted in Bitcoin, are frequently for amounts under $100. The report cites comments from Tether and Telegram, both of which say they prohibit and act against platform abuse, and concludes that centralized stablecoin systems and multibillion-dollar collateralized markets on Telegram remain critical chokepoints that law enforcement could target to disrupt these criminal economies.

Kraken Financial, the banking unit of Kraken, received approval to open a master account with the Federal Reserve on March 4, becoming the first digital asset bank in U.S. history with direct access to the Fed's payment infrastructure, the company announced. The authorization, linked to Kraken Financial's Wyoming Special Purpose Depository Institution (SPDI) charter, follows a regulatory review that began with an application to the Kansas City Federal Reserve in October 2020 and will run initially for one year with a phased rollout focused on institutional clients. Under the Federal Reserve's pilot "Skinny Master Account" model, Kraken Financial can settle funds directly via Fedwire but cannot earn interest on reserves or access emergency lending tools such as the discount window, while reducing reliance on correspondent banks and improving fiat settlement speed and costs for institutional users. Public records show other crypto firms including Custodia Bank, Anchorage Digital, and Ripple have applied for master accounts, and industry advocates say the approval could serve as a reference for additional SPDI-based applications in the evolving U.S. regulatory landscape.

A proposed US crypto market bill has stalled after banks rejected a White House-backed compromise on stablecoin yield regulations. The legislation seeks to establish rules governing returns on stablecoins but faces renewed opposition from banking institutions over the administration's framework. The impasse underscores ongoing tensions between policymakers and traditional financial firms over stablecoin oversight in the digital asset market.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sent interpretive guidance on how federal securities laws apply to certain crypto assets and related transactions to the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for interagency review, journalist Eleanor Terrett reports. The document, issued by the commission rather than staff, seeks to clarify how current law applies to crypto transactions and token classifications without creating new rules, and will proceed separately from the SEC's ongoing rulemaking on crypto asset offerings. After OIRA review, the SEC's three commissioners are expected to vote on the interpretation, which an agency spokesperson said aims to clarify obligations for investors and innovators and align with broader market structure legislation under discussion. Separately, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission submitted a plan on prediction markets to the White House and plans an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to define which products qualify for self-certification, while a coalition group called "Gambling is not investing" argues some prediction market platforms enable illegal sports betting and must comply with state and tribal gaming regulations.

Kraken's Wyoming-chartered banking unit has secured a Federal Reserve master account approved by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, becoming the first crypto firm with direct access to the Fed's core payment systems, BeInCrypto reports. The approval follows Kraken's receipt of a Special Purpose Depository Institution charter from Wyoming in September 2020 and its master account application in October 2020. Ripple applied for a national trust bank charter and Fed master account in July 2025 and received conditional charter approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in December, according to BeInCrypto. Analysts including Paul Barron and X Finance Bull have stated that if Ripple gains Fed master account access, it could integrate Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin and strengthen XRP's role as a bridge asset in cross-border payments, though the Federal Reserve's rails and XRP Ledger would remain separate systems with any XRP benefits being indirect.