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| By Marija Matic |
The first stablecoin launched in 2014. As of today, these digital dollars move $2 trillion a month.
For most of that history, the people creating that value captured almost none of the upside.
Here’s the catch: When you hold Tether (USDT, stablecoin) or USD Coin (USDC, stablecoin), their issuers —Tether and Circle, respectively — take your dollars and park them in U.S. Treasury bills. Not only does this help keep their stablecoins pegged to the dollar, it also allows the issuers to earn yield on those T-bills. They may also earn fees when large clients mint or redeem stablecoins.
In early 2026, Tether generated over $1 billion in a single quarter, driven largely by income from its reserves.
But token holders received none of that yield.
Joe Vollono thinks that's about to change. That’s because the Clarity Act can create the opening the industry needs.
Joe knows the space well. He previously helped build Ripple’s (XRP, “C+”) stablecoin, RLUSD. Now he’s joined a team led by one of Tether’s co-founders.
Together, they’re betting that the model they helped create is about to be rewritten.
And while Washington debates who should get a cut of future stablecoin yields via the CLARITY Act, China has already made its move. It announced in January that the digital yuan will carry yield properties.
To me, this is a clear sign: The stablecoin yield war has started.
So, I caught up with Joe at Consensus Miami 2026 to get his view from the inside …
Marija Matic: Can you fill me in on the project you’re working on now, STBL? Who’s behind this project, and what gap in the market are you trying to fill?
Joe Vollono: One of our founders created Tether, which put the dollar on-chain a decade ago via its USDT stablecoin.
But the market has evolved significantly since then: Technology has advanced, regulations have changed and we've seen the rise of tokenized assets — Treasurys and money market funds that are now available on-chain as collateral.
That's what we're building on: STBL is a non-custodial, decentralized protocol building what we call Stablecoin 2.0. Think of it as a paradigm shift away from the current centralized issuer model.
This project enables anyone to mint a dollar-denominated stablecoin against tokenized Treasurys and money market funds. And users can keep the yield from their underlying reserves.
Marija: STBL has its own stablecoin, USST. But apart from that, enterprises can also use your infrastructure to mint their own branded stablecoins with custom collateral. Is that right?
Joe: We enable enterprises to use our technology to mint their own ecosystem-specific stablecoins with custom collateral reserves.
Otherwise, USST is backed by select high-quality assets including Ondo Finance (ONDO, “C-”) and other GENIUS Act-compliant reserves.
In either case, these are not yield-bearing stablecoins in the traditional sense. We isolate the yield into an NFT called YLD which the minter receives at the time of minting alongside their stablecoin.
That NFT is the securities component; It will need to trade on a regulated venue such as a broker-dealer. The stablecoin itself remains fully fungible and moves freely, just like any other stablecoin.
Marija: What's the current yield on USST?
Joe: About 4%.
Marija: Know-your-customer (KYC) protocols are a barrier in a permissionless DeFi world. How does STBL bridge that gap and make its assets composable with the rest of DeFi?
Joe: Our product will enable tokenized assets to serve as the collateral backing of stable assets that can trade in DeFi. That would be done through a staked wrapper.
There are already models for that, like DAI (DAI, Stablecoin) and others. We want to do that at scale and really unlock the utility of these high-quality, on-chain assets and make them composable in DeFi.
Marija: Ok, so USST can be used freely by anyone in DeFi. But to actually capture the yield, you need to be whitelisted and KYCverified, which in practice limits it to institutions and non-U.S. users.
Is yield on USST ever going to reach ordinary American retail investors, and does the CLARITY Act change that calculus?
Joe: We're working on it.
There are examples of tokenized Treasury products that deliver yield directly to holders. But they are generally either limited to institutions/accredited investors or restricted to non-U.S. users.
For ordinary American retail investors, the regulatory framework is still evolving. Over time, we expect stablecoins themselves to be broadly accessible, while yield-bearing rights may increasingly be distributed through regulated venues.
Marija: The CLARITY Act is a bit vague on yield as of now. What does the industry need agencies to say during the rulemaking window, and who benefits most from how that language lands?
Joe: I'm extremely bullish on the CLARITY Act in its current form. Specifically, Section 404 prohibits covered parties from providing yield solely as a function of holding.
The implication is that we're moving from a "hold-to-earn" stablecoin market to a "use-to-earn" market.
Once signed, the agencies will have 12 months to define what permitted yield-generating activities actually look like. And we expect those to include minting, staking, payments, loyalty programs and a few other uses.
There's going to be a lot of lobbying over the next year. But if you zoom out, there's an unintended consequence here that actually favors the industry.
What Section 404 has created is a vacuum: a massive opportunity for a middle layer of companies to provide compliant yield products on otherwise idle stablecoin assets.
That vacuum is going to be filled very rapidly. And because of our composable yield functionality, STBL is well positioned to own that space.
Marija: Are you involved in those lobbying efforts directly, or through industry groups?
Joe: We have indirect support through legal counsel and industry lobbies, but we're not directly lobbying as an organization.
That said, we are part of the industry and represented by its advocates. I've attended events where the administration has shared the latest developments on these topics.
I understand the banks' position. But if you zoom out, this is bigger than just banking versus crypto.
In January, China announced it will enable yield properties on the digital yuan. What we're seeing is a global game theory playing out — different countries competing with different products.
The dollar is the dominant base currency globally, and stablecoins are essentially exporting digital euro-dollars. The offshore dollar market is $15 trillion dollars.
Those dollars need to remain competitive as new products emerge around the world.
Yield is a critical part of that story. Not just in the U.S., but globally. That's something all stakeholders need to recognize. These decisions aren't being made in a vacuum.
Marija: Does that mean we’re heading toward a tokenized currency war? If so, is the dollar prepared to fight it?
Joe: I wouldn't call it a war, but there is certainly economic leverage at play. Look at what's happening overseas with currencies being frozen. There are real implications to how these products are designed.
Specifically, China intends to compete in this space, and its digital yuan will have yield properties. That's significant.
But from a philosophical perspective, our hypothesis is that everyone will eventually participate in the economics of stablecoins. The model where a centralized issuer captures all the yield is not going to be the model of tomorrow.
The users providing value to these ecosystems should have a seat at the table. Now, technology enables that. And regulations will support it. I don't see how the incumbent model remains dominant forever.
It won't disappear overnight. But I do think it's important that the people adding value to these ecosystems benefit not just from the utility of a stablecoin, but from the economics of it too.
The takeaway is simple: Stablecoins are no longer just a payments layer. They’re becoming a battleground for yield and global monetary influence.
The old model, where issuers capture all the economics, is already under pressure from both sides …
Policymakers are shaping how yield can be distributed. Meanwhile, competitors like China are embedding it directly into their digital currency.
What comes next is a reallocation of value. Not all of it will flow back to users, and not evenly. But the direction is clear: Yield is moving from the margins to the center of stablecoin design.
That shift changes the game. And it should make investors reconsider which stablecoins should play a part in their strategy.
Best,
Marija Matić
