Traditional financial institutions are pushing regulatory changes to limit stablecoin rewards—but their reasoning goes far deeper than systemic risk concerns. The real issue? Rewards fundamentally shift how payments work. They transform transactions from passive banking services into active competition. When users get rewarded for using crypto payments over traditional channels, it directly threatens banking margins. Stablecoins aren't a threat because they destabilize the system; they're a threat because they redistribute where profits flow. As DeFi continues reshaping financial infrastructure, the margin compression from competitive rewards represents something far more destabilizing to traditional finance than any technical risk ever could.