Crypto won’t lend. That’s exactly the point.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) put his hesitation about the Clarity Act into one theory: “Crypto is not going to be loaning any money for small businesses.”

He is exactly right. And that is why his objection misses the point entirely.

Washington’s biggest financial institutions are blocking competition under the pretense of protecting the community banks while simultaneously outpacing them on technology.

A regulated stablecoin cannot lend. Federal law requires the issuer to hold a dollar of Treasury bills and cash for every digital dollar in circulation. That makes a stablecoin a payment instrument, a faster wire, not a bank. Lending, the hard local work of judging character, collateral, and cash flow, stays exactly where it has always lived: with bankers.

The digital dollar moves the money. The community banker