Crypto Twitter lit up today when Maya Zehavi dropped a reality check on the latest “JPMorgan found a stablecoin loophole” narrative.

Responding to Laura Shin’s excellent reporting that JPMorgan’s new $JPMD token on Base can pay interest and avoid the strict full-collateralization rules that bind USDT and USDC under the GENIUS Act, Maya made it clear:

This isn’t a loophole. It’s the whole point.

“Only it’s not a loophole as much as a built in advantage in the GENIUS act to make sure tokenizing deposit notes give banks an advantage in stablecoin proliferation.

Imagine JPM offered the interest even payments as a cash back, they can out compete any Stripe/crypto offering & build out their own on-chain credit network.”

That second part should send chills down the spine of every DeFi founder and stablecoin issuer.

The GENIUS Act (the new U.S. stablecoin framework) explicitly forbids non-bank issuers from paying yield to holders and forces them to hold 100% high-quality collateral.

Banks issuing tokenized deposits? They get to pay interest because, well, they’re banks. And their deposits are already fractionally reserved by design.

Result: Wall Street just got handed a golden ticket to eat crypto’s lunch in the exact arena crypto thought it owned – fast, programmable, 24/7 money.

If JPMorgan (or any big bank) leans into this, they can:

• Offer real yield on a “stablecoin” that’s actually a tokenized bank deposit
• Use that yield as cash-back for on-chain payments
• Build a closed-loop credit and payments network that no DeFi protocol or fintech can legally match on price

For the meme coin degens trading on Base, this actually matters more than it seems. More institutional stable value flowing into Base = deeper liquidity = tighter spreads = less slippage on your $DEGEN or $BRETT trades.

But it also means the future of on-chain money might end up looking a lot more like JPMorgan Chase than Vitalik’s vision.

Maya’s tweet (and Laura’s original reporting) is required reading for anyone who still thinks banks are going to sit on the sidelines.

Read Maya Zehavi’s full post here: https://x.com/mayazi/status/1993776030364979385

Read Laura Shin’s thread here: https://x.com/laurashin/status/1993672113224667232

The GENIUS Act didn’t accidentally give banks god-mode in crypto.
It was written that way on purpose.

And the game just changed forever.