The CEO of stablecoin issuer Circle has weighed in on the importance of stablecoin rewards and why he believes the banking industry’s concerns about interest payments on these assets are “absurd.” Circle CEO Rejects Banks’ Stablecoin Fears Speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Circle’s CEO, Jeremy Allaire, discussed banks’ growing concerns that paying interest on stablecoins poses a threat to the industry, calling the deposit flight narrative “totally absurd.” The banking sector has expressed concerns about stablecoin rewards, arguing that interest payments will distort market dynamics and affect credit creation. In the US, banks have heavily criticized the GENIUS Act, claiming that it has loopholes that could pose risks to the financial system. The executive rejected the sector’s general arguments, citing historical and practical reasons. He asserted that this exact argument has been historically used when new financial products, such as government money market funds, have emerged. Notably, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan recently compared the digital assets to money market mutual funds, which require reserves to be held in short-term instruments, such as US Treasuries, reducing lending capacity in the system. The executive told investors that the banking sector, small- and medium-sized businesses in particular, could face significant challenges if the US Congress does not prohibit interest-bearing stablecoins, as up to $6 trillion in deposits, or 30% to 35% of all US commercial bank deposits, could flow out of the banking system and into the stablecoin sector. However, Allaire pointed out that, despite institutions claiming that financial products would “draw all the deposit base,” their growth has not “stopped the ability for lending to happen.” The importance Of Rewards Circle’s CEO also argued that stablecoins should not be singled out when rewards for other financial products exist and contribute to the system. “Those rewards (…) exist in every balance that you have with a credit card that you use. They exist around so many other financial products and services that we have,” he detailed. “These rewards are actually very important,” Allaire continued. “They help with stickiness, they help with customer traction. They are not themselves like these huge monetary policy dampers.” Most importantly, he pointed out that lending is moving away from the risk-taking of banks, with “a huge amount of lending is moving towards private credit.” He cited a Wednesday WEF panel, in which a capital markets participant highlighted how the vast majority of GDP growth in the United States was “formed by capital market formation around junk bonds.” “So private credit issuing junk bonds, capitalizing the build out of the American technology advancements, not bank credit,” the executive added. Previously, Coinbase Institute shared a similar argument, affirming that “credit is evolving, not shrinking. Lending is shifting to private credit, fintech, and DeFi channels that don’t depend on deposits. Liquidity moves—it doesn’t vanish.” Allaire concluded that “we want stablecoin money to be cash instrument money, prudentially supervised, very, very safe money. And then I think what we want to do is we want to build models for lending that build on top of stablecoins.”
