Senate Passes Landmark Stablecoin Bill in Major Boom for Crypto Industry

After months of dramatic starts and stops, the U.S. Senate successfully passed the GENIUS Act Tuesday afternoon, a landmark bill that formally establishes a framework for issuing and trading stablecoins in the United States.

The bill passed 68-30, with 18 Democrats joining Republicans in support of the legislation. A Senate Republican, Josh Hawley (R-MO), voted against the bill, joining progressive Senate Democrats like Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in opposition to provisions in the legislation that would allow powerful Big Tech firms to issue their own stablecoins and track users’ spending data under certain conditions. Another Republican, Rand Paul (R-KY), also voted against the GENIUS Act.

Stablecoins are crypto tokens typically pegged to the U.S. dollar that allow users to enter and exit crypto positions without accessing dollars directly. For this reason, they are a key ramp between the crypto ecosystem and traditional financial markets.

In recent months, America’s top banks, key Wall Street players, retail heavyweights like Walmart, and tech giants like Amazon have all expressed interest in developing their own stablecoins, intrigued by various incentives ranging from collecting yield on customer deposits to dodging costly traditional payment processing fees. It’s widely expected that once stablecoin legislation is signed into law, the floodgates from Wall Street and the American banking sector will open, potentially bringing trillions of dollars into the crypto market.

“A thriving stablecoin ecosystem will drive demand from the private sector for US Treasuries, which back stablecoins,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday afternoon. “This newfound demand could lower government borrowing costs and help rein in the national debt. It could also onramp millions of new users—across the globe—to the dollar-based digital asset economy.”

Crypto industry leaders immediately hailed today’s vote as a landmark victory for the sector.

“The U.S. approving its first major federal legislation focused on stablecoins is a pivotal step in shaping the country’s digital asset future and addressing oversight of the rapidly growing digital asset ecosystem,” Liat Shetret, vice president of Global Policy and Regulation at Elliptic, a blockchain intelligence firm, said in a statement shared with Decrypt.

“This is a win for the U.S., a win for innovation, and a monumental step towards appropriate regulation for digital assets in the United States,” Amanda Tuminelli, executive director of the DeFi Education Fund, an industry lobbying group, said in a statement also shared with Decrypt.

The GENIUS Act now needs to pass a vote in the House before it can be sent to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature. That vote may not be imminent, however.

Despite insistences from top Senate Republicans that the GENIUS Act should be signed into law as soon as possible—ideally, by July 4—House Republicans have their own stablecoin bill and may want to combine it with the flailing, more broadly impactful crypto market structure bill to give the combined legislation higher odds of passage through both chambers.