Op-ed: Billy Sewell: Don’t Let a Crypto Carve-Out Drain the Credit North Carolina Farms and Businesses Depend On

Every winter, before the ground thaws, North Carolina farmers sit down with the same local banks their families have used for generations to work out how they will pay for a crop that won’t come in for another eight months. Seed, fertilizer, diesel, a part for the planter that finally quit. None of it waits for harvest. Farming, when you get down to it, is spending money now and hoping the weather and the markets let you earn it back later. That gap gets bridged with credit, and that credit comes from banks right here in North Carolina. 

So when I hear that Washington is about to make that credit harder to come by, it gets my attention. I'm a small business owner, not a farmer.  However, access to capital is a vital and constant need for both farms and small businesses.

There’s a bill in the Senate called the CLARITY Act. Most of it I won’t pretend to have an opinion on. But tucked inside is a special carve-out for the crypto industry that would let big crypto platforms pay people interest for parking stablecoins in their accounts. 

Think about what that does. The deposits sitting in a community bank aren’t just numbers on a screen. They’re the money that gets lent back out to the farmer down the road who needs a new barn, to the young couple buying their first house, to the machine shop in town that wants to hire a few more hands. Move those deposits into crypto accounts run by people who’ve never driven past a tobacco field, and there’s less to lend at home. The local bankers I know, the ones who actually understand how business operations work, are the ones sounding the alarm the loudest. 

And for what? So a handful of slick crypto bros already sitting on millions of dollars can pad their accounts a little more. That’s the trade Washington is being asked to make. They pocket the cash while family farms and small businesses suffer. 

As a businessman myself, I’ll always be fair. I’ve got nothing against crypto, and nothing against anybody building something new. If somebody wants to go invent the next big thing, good for them. The fix here isn’t complicated or radical. A crypto account shouldn’t get to act like a bank without living by the same rules as one. Close the carve-out. That’s the whole ask.

This is where our Senator comes in. Ted Budd grew up around business and farming. He’s owned and operated a business of his own. Nobody has to explain any of this to him. We are fortunate that he is our Senator, and I'm hopeful that he will insist this carve-out gets fixed before the bill moves another inch.

The truth is, most of us in business don’t track every twist and turn in Washington. We’ve got plenty to work on already.  But this one you can see coming a mile off. Somebody in a glass tower wants to make a little more money, and the way this bill is written, farmers and small business owners would be at risk every time they need to access capital from our local community bank. 

Business in North Carolina is hard enough as it is. Our grandparents made farms and businesses work, our parents made them work, and I’d like to believe the next generation will get that same shot if they want it. We must ensure that our local financial institutions, where they actually know your name, remain accessible and strong. 

Washington shouldn’t make it harder for farmers and small business owners to do business locally just to make it easier to get rich in crypto. Senator Budd can help stop that.