Bitcoin has rocketed higher this week, surging to within touching distance of $100,000 per bitcoin as traders begin to panic over the future of the U.S. dollar.
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The bitcoin price, which fell sharply through the last few months of 2025, has recovered as Goldman Sachs quietly joins crypto market bulls.
Now, with bitcoin and crypto traders betting on a huge 2026 Federal Reserve game-changer, Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan has warned bitcoin and crypto legislation could trigger a $6 trillion bank exodus as deposits are withdrawn.
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Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan has warned crypto-based stablecoins could cause a $6 trillion Wall Street exodus, just as the bitcoin price nears $100,000.
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“If you take out deposits, they’re either not going to be able to loan or they’re going to have to get wholesale funding, and that wholesale funding will come at a cost,” Moynihan said on an earnings call in comments reported by The Block, pointing to U.S. Treasury Department studies that show $6 trillion of bank deposits could move from the U.S. banking system into stablecoins.
Crypto-based stablecoins, which are usually pegged to the U.S. dollar, have seen massive adoption in recent years, sparking fears the technology could be creating a “dangerous” parallel financial system.
“The creation of a parallel banking system that … has all the features of banking, including something that looks a lot like a deposit that pays interest, without sort of the associated prudential safeguards that have been developed over hundreds of years of bank regulation, is an obviously dangerous and undesirable thing,” JPMorgan’s chief financial officer Jeremy Barnum said in response to an analyst question during the bank’s fourth-quarter earnings call earlier this week.
Moynihan’s warning comes as lawmakers are lobbied by crypto companies and the traditional banking industry on the landmark crypto market structure bill that could have seen stablecoin issuers offer interest-style yield on stablecoin deposits.
“Crypto is encouraging American consumers to abandon traditional bank accounts in favor of ‘digital dollars’ called stablecoins,” Democratic Party senator Richard Blumenthal wrote in a piece for Fox Business, arguing against the bill.
“The industry is even trying to replace savings accounts through offering ‘yield’ on tokens—the crypto equivalent of interest. While this new form of digital currency may sound appealing, stablecoins lack basic safeguards that protected the depositors at Silicon Valley Bank when it failed in 2023.”
Bitcoin and crypto exchange Coinbase has dramatically withdrawn its support for the bill that was due to be debated by senators this week, claiming it favors the traditional banks and throwing its future into doubt.
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The bitcoin price has bounced back so far this year as lawmakers weigh landmark bitcoin and crypto legislation.
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“Crypto needs to be treated on a level playing field with the rest of financial services so we can build this industry in a safe and trusted way in America,” Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong posted to X.
The evolving regulatory landscape has helped the bitcoin price rally into 2026, with crypto market watchers pointing to its rally as evidence bitcoin is acting more like gold than a risk asset.
“Bitcoin has fundamentally decoupled from its 2021-era ‘high-beta’ reputation. Trading firmly between $90,000 and $100,000, bitcoin is now functioning as a sophisticated macro hedge against central-bank volatility,” Wenny Cai, chief operating officer of derivatives exchange SynFutures, said in emailed comments.
“The crypto market’s $3.2 trillion capitalization is no longer driven by retail fervor, but by a structural ‘refactoring’ of the U.S. regulatory landscape.”