Recently, the controversy over whether stablecoins can pay yields appears to be a matter of regulatory details on the surface, but at a deeper level, it reflects a fundamental confrontation in financial infrastructure.

A statement from the founder of a leading compliant platform is quite thought-provoking: rather than accept a flawed regulatory framework, it’s better to have no legislation at all. This remark reveals the essence of the issue—if legislation merely traps innovation within the old system’s framework forever, then so-called "legalization" becomes a trap.

Let’s look at where the real conflicts of interest lie. The traditional banking model relies on a basic spread: low-interest deposits from savers, high-interest loans, and the profit margin in between. But if stablecoins can legally pay yields, the situation would change dramatically. Imagine an account that operates 24/7, circulates across borders, and has near-zero transaction costs—such a "super savings account" would siphon funds from where? The answer is obvious: from the traditional banking system. This is not just simple competition; it’s a disruption to the entire fundamental banking business model.

More realistically, on-chain lending has already been doing this. Take Lista DAO as an example: this platform doesn’t need to wait for regulatory approval; users can already earn steady returns through its lending market. You can lend assets at very low costs, or allocate real-world assets like U.S. Treasuries on-chain to earn interest directly. The most interesting part is that users staking governance tokens $LISTA can receive over 38% annualized incentives—such a yield is completely unheard of in traditional finance.

This creates a paradoxical situation: a leading compliant platform in Washington fighting for the "interest-paying rights" of stablecoins, while decentralized finance protocols have long been accustomed to this and even do it more aggressively. Users no longer need to ask "when will my stablecoin start paying interest," because they’ve already found the answer on-chain.

What does this mean? It suggests that true financial transformation may bypass traditional negotiations and compromises. It’s not about fighting for a place at the negotiation table within the old system, but about redefining the rules of the game within a completely new system. Native on-chain protocols are attracting funds that would otherwise stay in the banking system with higher efficiency, greater transparency, and more open architectures.

The debate over stablecoin interest payments may seem like a policy issue, but fundamentally, it asks: who will dominate the future financial infrastructure? Will it continue to be monopolized by the walls of traditional banks, or will it shift toward open, composable, and efficient crypto protocols? Based on the capabilities already realized by Lista DAO, the answer to this question may no longer be in the hands of policymakers.