Joshua Riezman, Chief Legal and Strategy Officer at cryptocurrency market maker GSR, said in an interview with The Block at the Consensus Miami conference on Wednesday that the likelihood of the Clear Act reaching the president’s desk during this session of Congress is less than 50%.
During the conversation, Ritzmann expressed a more cautious perspective than the prevailing industry optimism at the event.
“If I have to give my opinion, I’d say the chances of this being completed at this meeting are currently less than 50% for me, but it’s not impossible,” Ritzmann told Kelvin Sparks of The Block.
The Clear Act had previously passed the House of Representatives and has since been under prolonged consideration in the Senate, with the Banking Committee and the Agriculture Committee each proposing their own drafts.
Notably, the Senate banking committee has become a major obstacle, with the deadlock primarily centered on the issue of stablecoin yields, particularly whether stablecoins can generate rewards. With the passage of the GENIUS Act and the widespread development of stablecoins, banking lobbying groups have taken a more hardline stance on yield-bearing products, intensifying this issue.
Ritzman said that bipartisan Senate staff have been working daily for months to narrow their differences, and bipartisan senators have reached a compromise and are ready to move forward.
According to himself, this was a true compromise. "Like any good compromise, neither side is 100% satisfied," he said.
Beyond the Yield Debate
Stablecoin yields are not the only point of pressure.
Ritzman noted that both parties have questions about the president and his family’s involvement in the cryptocurrency industry, and whether this issue will be addressed within the bill itself adds further complexity.
According to The Block, over 100 amendments targeting stablecoins, ethics, and decentralized finance (DeFi) have been submitted ahead of Thursday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing. It is reported that unions have also come forward to speak out. Opposing the bill before the vote.
Riezman’s assessment put him in direct opposition to Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, who stated that the Clear Act will pass this summer. and urged banks to accept the stablecoin compromise on the table.
Ritzman believes that if the Clear Act is stalled in this session, its passage could be significantly delayed.
A GRS executive believes this outcome could harm U.S. competitiveness, leaving consumers and retailers without the protections the bill aimed to provide. “In this scenario, no one really wins,” he said.
Tokenization
From a long-term industry development perspective, Ritzman is more optimistic. He believes that the stablecoin market size is approximately $300 billion, the tokenized U.S. Treasury market size is around $15 billion, and the tokenized private credit market size is close to $3 billion, with all three markets showing vertical growth trends.
He stated that he expects the stablecoin market to eventually grow to between $1 trillion and $3 trillion, and that a significant portion of companies listed on the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and New York Stock Exchange will be tokenized over the next few years.
“In my view, there’s no reason why the stablecoin market shouldn’t reach one trillion, two trillion, or three trillion dollars,” he said about the stablecoin market.
Riezman added that tokenization-as-a-service will rapidly commoditize, and the real value will ultimately flow to end investors through a disintermediated stock lending economy and to issuers through expanded LP distribution, rather than to any single infrastructure layer.