As expected, the Senate passed the GENIUS Act with bipartisan support Tuesday evening. It’s the first stablecoin-focused bill to pass a chamber of Congress.
The bill passed in a 68-30 vote.
The GENIUS Act “ensures American consumers and businesses can participate in the digital economy with confidence and security,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who co-sponsored the legislation, said ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
The bill requires stablecoin issuers to maintain fully-backed reserves of US dollars or “similarly liquid” government-issued assets, such as bonds. Issuers with more than $50 billion in issued tokens must complete annual audits.
The law also affords more authority to state regulators, which will be required to maintain regulatory frameworks that are “substantially similar” to those at the federal level. Issuers who exceed $10 billion in issuance must be overseen by federal regulators or apply for an exemption.
Not all members of the minority party are satisfied. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a longtime critic of seemingly pro-crypto policy, called the legislation “flawed.”
“A bill that meaningfully strengthens oversight of the stablecoin market is worth enacting,” she said on the Senate floor last month. “A bill that turbocharges the stablecoin market, while facilitating the President’s corruption and undermining national security, financial stability, and consumer protection is worse than no bill at all.”
Other Democrats resigned that while the bill is not perfect, it is a step in the right direction.
“We weren’t able to include certainly everything we would have wanted, but it was a good bipartisan effort,” Democrat Angela Alsobrooks told reporters on Monday. “This is an unregulated area that will now be regulated.”
The bill received more than 100 proposed amendments from Republicans and Democrats alike.
The next step for Congress will be to pass a market structure bill, Lummis added, saying that draft legislation will be released in the coming weeks.
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