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US-China split on digital money deepens as stablecoin debate stalls Clarity Act

US crypto advocates have increasingly pointed to competition with China’s new interest-bearing e-CNY to demand legislative clarity on stablecoin yields, but China is charting a…

By Samantha Johnson / March 19, 2026

US crypto advocates have increasingly pointed to competition with China’s new interest-bearing e-CNY to demand legislative clarity on stablecoin yields, but China is charting a completely different course for the future of digital money, experts said.

“The world’s two largest economies are not so much competing in digital assets as they are pursuing very different strategies,” said Andrew Fei, a partner at law firm King & Wood Mallesons in Hong Kong.

Winston Ma, adjunct professor and executive director of the Global Public Investment Funds Forum at the New York University School of Law, described the US-China competition in digital assets as intense but “asymmetrical”.

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“At this stage, Beijing is deliberately choosing a different digital‑money model from Washington: China is putting the sovereign e‑CNY at the centre of its architecture, while the US is effectively letting privately issued dollar stablecoins lead the way,” Ma said.

Warnings about China’s competitive threat in digital assets have been growing in the US as the crypto industry pushes for a major coming legislation, the Clarity Act, to allow stablecoin issuers to pay users interest on their holdings.

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While banks argue that stablecoin yields would attract deposits away and reduce their ability to lend to the real economy, crypto firms say that allowing rewards on holding stablecoins would promote digital asset innovation.

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