WASHINGTON — After weeks of stops and starts, Senate Republicans teamed up with a bloc of Democrats on Tuesday to pass a landmark cryptocurrency bill that would establish the first regulatory framework for issuers of stablecoins.
The vote on the GENIUS Act was 68-30, with 18 Democrats joining most Republicans in favor. Just two Republicans — Rand Paul of Kentucky and Josh Hawley of Missouri — voted against it.
The vote was the first time that the Senate has passed major legislation regulating digital assets.
"With this bill, the United States is one step closer to becoming the global leader in crypto," Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., the author of the GENIUS Act, said in a floor speech. "This bill will cement U.S. dollar dominance, it will protect customers, it will drive demand for U.S. treasuries."
"Today will be remembered as an inflection point for innovation in the United States of America," he said.
The GENIUS Act now heads to the Republican-led House, which has been working to pass its own bipartisan bill focused on creating a regulatory framework for digital assets.
Washington continues to wrestle with how best to regulate the fast-growing cryptocurrency industry. Democrats have been divided over the issue, with some in the party pushing Congress to do more to rein in an industry they see as rife with conflicts of interests for President Donald Trump and his family.
The Senate Banking Committee passed an earlier version of the GENIUS Act in April, with backing from five Democrats. But Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the Democrats — along with two Republicans — blocked the bill from advancing on the floor in May as they demanded stronger national security and anti-money laundering provisions.
A group of bipartisan negotiators — Hagerty and Sens. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md.; and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. — later struck a deal on changes to the bill that addressed key sticking points for Democrats.
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The changes called for consumer protection safeguards and limits on tech companies issuing stablecoins, digital tokens pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar, and they would extend ethics standards to special government employees.
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The bipartisan deal unlocked support from a broader group of Democrats, and the legislation advanced on the floor after it cleared the 60-vote threshold.
“I think because we worked so hard and so long with them that it got a few more of them to ‘yes.’ And so I think this is a real legislative victory,” Lummis told NBC News before the vote. “They did get more of what they wanted. They should be voting yes, because they were extremely influential in shaping the legislation.”
But other Democrats were frustrated that nothing in the revised legislation would explicitly prevent Trump and his family from continuing their crypto ventures. New financial disclosure forms reveal that Trump made one of his largest fortunes last year, $57.3 million, on his family’s cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial.
"This is a bill that was written by the industry that will supercharge the profitability of Donald Trump's crypto corruption, while it undercuts consumer protection and weakens our national defense," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, told NBC News.
The legislation does include language that would “prohibit any member of Congress or senior executive branch official from issuing a payment stablecoin product during their time in public service.”
But Warren argued that the legislation isn't strong enough to prevent terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminals from using stablecoins for illicit purposes.
The bill "is in a better place, but it's not in a good enough place," she said.
