Jan 28 (Reuters) – The White House on Monday will meet with executives from the banking and cryptocurrency industries to discuss a path forward for landmark crypto legislation which has stalled due to ​a clash between the two powerful sectors, said three industry sources.

The summit hosted by the White House’s crypto council ‌will include executives from several trade groups. It will focus on how the bill treats interest and other rewards crypto firms can dish out on customer holdings of dollar-pegged tokens known as stablecoins, the people said.

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Reuters was first to report ​the meeting.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The sources declined to be identified discussing private policy discussions.

“We look forward to continuing to work with policymakers across the aisle so Congress can advance lasting market structure legislation and ensure the United States remains the crypto capital of the world,” she said.

Cody Carbone, CEO of The Digital Chamber, another major crypto trade group, credited ⁠the White House with “pulling all sides to the negotiating table.”

The Senate has for months been working on the bill, dubbed the Clarity ‍Act, which aims to create federal rules for digital assets, the culmination of years of crypto industry lobbying. Crypto companies have long argued that existing ‌rules are ‌inadequate for digital assets, and that legislation is essential for companies to continue to operate with legal certainty in the U.S.

The House of Representatives passed its version of the bill in July.

The Senate Banking Committee was scheduled earlier this month to debate and vote on the bill, but the meeting was postponed at the last minute, in part due to concerns among lawmakers and both industries over the interest ⁠issue.

Crypto companies say providing rewards such as interest is crucial for recruiting new customers and that barring them from doing so would be anti-competitive. ‍Banks say the increased competition could result in insured lenders experiencing an exodus of deposits — the primary source of funding for ⁠most banks — potentially threatening ⁠financial stability.

That bill prohibited stablecoin issuers from paying interest ‌on ‌cryptocurrencies, but banks say it left open a loophole that would allow for third parties – such ​as crypto exchanges – to pay yield on tokens, creating new competition for deposits.

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Chinese-language money laundering networks made up $16.1 billion of that total as they play an increasing role in crypto crime, the report said.

“These are groups that are growing exponentially,” Andrew Fierman, head of national security intelligence at Chainalysis, told Bloomberg, per the report. “We’re talking about growth of over 7,300 times faster than other illicit flows.”

Although China has outlawed crypto transactions, illegal activity continues as the government chiefly focuses on behavior that threatens capital controls or financial stability, according to the report.

The networks “have really embraced cryptocurrencies,” said Kathryn Westmore, a senior associate fellow at the Centre for Finance and Security at RUSI, per the report, adding that crypto provides “a way to launder the proceeds of cash-generating criminal activities, like drugs or fraud.”

The news followed a warning from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in August, which said Chinese money laundering networks are now among the most significant threats to the American financial system, helping fuel the operations of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels.

“The networks have become effective partners because they can move cash quickly, absorb losses and leverage demand from Chinese nationals seeking to bypass Beijing’s strict currency controls,” PYMNTS reported Aug. 29. “By pairing cartel dollars with Chinese demand for U.S. currency, these networks have created what FinCEN called a ‘mutualistic relationship’ that strengthens both sides.”

Meanwhile, Eric Jardine, head of research at Chainalysis, discussed last year’s record-setting levels of crypto crime with PYMNTS in an interview published Monday (Jan. 26). Around $154 billion flowed to illicit addresses, the most ever recorded, and there was a 160% increase in illicit volumes.

“But treating that number as evidence of runaway criminal adoption may miss the more consequential story,” PYMNTS wrote. “What changed in 2025 was not merely volume, but the identity of the actors, the scale at which they operated, and the implications this has for banks, regulators, and the future architecture of financial blockchain compliance.”

The true inflection came from “a shift in who’s doing what,” Jardine said, adding that in 2025, nation states, most notably Russia, began taking part “in earnest in the crypto ecosystem,” chiefly through sanctions evasion.

Unlike earlier state-linked activity, like North Korea’s hacking campaigns, this was not marginal behavior at the edges of the system, but “industrial-scale financial activity conducted in plain sight,” PYMNTS wrote.