CRYPTO GROUPS HAVE SPENT $190 MILLION AHEAD OF THE MIDTERMS — THE CLARITY VOTE ON SEPTEMBER 15 NEEDS 60 — AND WHAT BOTH SIDES ARE ACTUALLY FIGHTING OVER IS WHETHER A STABLECOIN CAN PAY YOU INTEREST

The lobbying has left Washington. Stand With Crypto is running chapter meetings in senators' home states. The Blockchain Association launched a campaign in July called Clarity for America. The Independent Community Bankers of America is working the other side of the same doors. Crypto groups have put at least $190 million into the November midterms, and Stand With Crypto says its members called or emailed Congress nearly 50,000 times in August alone.

The Senate votes on September 15 and needs 60.

Now the part that does not make the ads. All of that money and all of those calls are aimed at a bill whose fight, stripped down, is one question: can a stablecoin pay you interest. The banks say no, because a dollar that pays 4% on a phone is a dollar that leaves a checking account that pays nothing. The crypto side says yes, because that is the product. Everything else in this bill, the SEC and CFTC line-drawing, the DeFi language, the custody rules, is downstream of that one fight over where deposits sit.

That is worth knowing before Tuesday, because the coverage will call it a crypto bill and the vote will be about bank funding. Community banks do not employ a Washington army. They employ a senator's neighbors, and there are 76 state banking associations who know how to write a letter.

Bitcoin is not in this argument and cannot be dragged into it. It does not pay interest, so there is no yield to fight over. It has no issuer, so there is no deposit to pull out of a bank. The thing both lobbies are spending $190 million to define is a dollar with a new wrapper, and the reason the fight is this expensive is that everyone involved understands exactly how much a dollar is worth holding.