🆕 Clarity Act text lets crypto firms offer stablecoin rewards while shielding bank yield

Text has emerged revealing the Clarity Act compromise worked out between members of the Senate Banking Committee, which would allow crypto firms to keep pursuing stablecoin reward programs.

🟠The new section of proposed Digital Asset Market Clarity Act text released Friday revealed that the compromise hashed out by U.S. Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) would ban stablecoin issuers from offering yield based on just holding stablecoin reserves.

It contends that "depository institutions provide financial services that are integral to the strength of the American economy," and stablecoin issuers offering similar services "may inhibit" these institutions.

🖋 In its legalese, the new text reads:

"No covered party shall, directly or indirectly, pay any form of interest on yield (whether in cash, tokens, or other consideration) to a restricted recipient — (A) solely in connection with the holding of such restricted recipient's payment stablecoins; or (B) on a payment stablecoin balance in a manner that is economically or functionally equivalent to the payment of interest or yield on an interest-bearing bank deposit."

This restriction does not apply to incentives "based on bona fide activities or bona fide transactions" that are different from yield generated by interest-bearing bank deposits, the text said, maintaining an approach to rewards that's similar to what financial firms offer on credit card activity. The restriction does apply to loyalty programs or similar efforts.

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🇵🇭 Most active volcano in Philippines rumbles again, spewing giant ash column sky high

Philippines says thousands evacuated as Mayon volcano erupts and authorities advised the public to stay out of radius danger zone. The volcanology institute issued Alert Level 3 in its five-step scale as it reported “strombolian activity and short-lived lava fountaining,” from one of the Southeast Asian nation’s most active volcanoes. It warned of landslides and lava flows.

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🛜 T-Mobile's Starlink Mobile Offers Roaming in Canada, New Zealand

T-Mobile’s implementation of Starlink Mobile, T-Satellite, is expanding beyond the US, enabling subscribers to roam and receive satellite connectivity in dead zones across Canada and New Zealand. Until now, the satellite-to-phone service has been restricted to the continental US, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and parts of Alaska.

"Now T-Satellite has your back in places towers can’t reach, including Canada and New Zealand," — T-Mobile writes in an update to the T-Satellite website.

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🤑 Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) Makes Strategic Investment in Ascend to Accelerate Compliant RWA Infrastructure Development

Ascend and the SDF today announced a strategic partnership to advance the development of compliance-first credit infrastructure for RWAs on the Stellar blockchains. Central to this partnership is $1 million in direct investment support for Ascend.

🟠Ascend is being built by PSG Digital Labs, the technology arm of PSG Digital, a globally licensed asset management and digital investment platform. The protocol is designed to provide the first compliant credit market infrastructure for onchain regulated RWA collateral, building on the identity-aware token standard ERC-3643.

❗️Ascend's infrastructure is architected from the ground up for regulated assets: enforcing eligibility and transfer controls at the asset layer. This approach enables tokenized assets to function as productive collateral in permissioned credit vaults, and connects institutional RWAs to DeFi liquidity without compromising regulatory posture. 🔃

“Ascend's compliance-first approach aligns directly with how institutions actually operate, and that's what makes them a natural partner for the SDF. This is how RWAs move from being issued onchain to being actively used across financial markets at scale," - said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, President and Chief Growth Officer of the SDF.

🤝 Together, the partnership extends Ascend's regulated asset infrastructure to the Stellar network, enabling ERC-3643-standard assets originating on Stellar to access Ascend's permissioned vault and credit framework — and in doing so, establishing a shared foundation for compliant institutional finance on public blockchains.

#Stellar

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