CLARITY and Conflict

Bitcoin & Markets | Mar 24, 2026

Movement for the CLARITY Act

The latest draft of the Clarity Act would ban yield on stablecoin balances, allowing only narrowly defined rewards tied to user activity rather than passive holding. This reflects a compromise with the banking sector, which pushed to prevent stablecoins from resembling interest-bearing deposits or competing with traditional lending. The result is a restrictive and somewhat unclear framework, where rewards must avoid looking like yield in both structure and perception, leaving key details around implementation unresolved.

While industry insiders see the language as overly narrow, the revision may help break a legislative bottleneck and move the bill forward. The Clarity Act is a major step toward establishing a broader market structure for bitcoin and digital assets in the U.S. A lingering debate remains around DeFi oversight and political constraints. If this draft were passed, it would reduce regulatory uncertainty and could unlock greater institutional participation and development across the ecosystem.

I view this battle as separate from Bitcoin. It's the "crypto" lobby attempting to use legislation to carve out a bank-nonbank niche their scams can occupy. The banks don't want that obviously. It would be better to treat this through deregulation instead of special dispensation. But that's where we are.

I love seeing the Circle stock price plunge on this news of no stablecoin yield. Circle is a Jeremy Allaire company, who is an enemy of bitcoin.

Bitcoin and Gold's Performance Since Iran Conflict

I had a major response to Bob Elliott and Michael Green right after October 7 on bitcoin as a geopolitical hedge. They claimed it wasn’t, because bitcoin didn’t immediately move higher in response to the event. I argued that it is a geopolitical hedge, and over the last month, my refutation of their points has been proven right.

In that earlier piece, I differentiated between a mechanical hedge, like a short position designed to move in the opposite direction, and a strategic hedge, which is meant to be generally stable and uncorrelated to geopolitical stressors.

I wonder what they are thinking now? The bitcoin/gold ratio bottomed on the exact day hostilities began and is up 34% since. Bitcoin has gained 34% relative to gold since Iranian hostilities started.

Like the copper/gold ratio, the bitcoin/gold ratio doesn’t have to reverse through the underperforming asset rising faster. It can also correct through gold falling while bitcoin or copper remain relatively stable. That appears to be what we’re seeing so far in this reversal.

As the reversal continues, I expect bitcoin to begin gaining upward momentum while gold continues to correct. The bitcoin/gold ratio should double and approach 30 over the next 6-12 months.

HODL strong. Thanks for reading! PLEASE SHARE!

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