TMTPOST -- The U.S. Senate passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins, known as the GENIUS Act, in a 68-30 vote on Tuesday evening, delivering a positive signal to the crypto industry.
Eighteen Democrats and the majority of Republicans voted for the bill, the first legislation to create a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins, which are crypto tokens pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar, gold or other underlying assets.
During the Trump’s presidential campaign, the crypto industry channeled over $131 million into U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign. In the past year, the Republican Party has embraced the crypto industry, voting overwhelmingly to advance the bill’s passage. There were two GOP holdouts: Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Josh Hawley of Missouri, both ardent critics of big tech corporate giants.
The bill will move to the House of Representatives, which is working on its own companion legislation, the STABLE Act.
Back in May, nine Democrats who had previously supported the GENIUS Act abruptly changed their stances, asking to revise the bill’s text. Shortly afterward, Senators Elizabeth Warren of Maryland and Ron Wyden of Wisconsin blocked an effort to bring the legislation to a floor vote, citing a series of recent developments related to the Trump family’s cryptocurrency ventures. Among their concerns was a controversial private dinner for major holders of the $TRUMP memecoin.
Senator Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee and a longtime advocate for consumer protections, ultimately voted against the bill’s final version. In a floor speech on June 11, she argued that the legislation lacked essential regulatory safeguards: “It would make Trump the regulator of his own financial company and, importantly, the regulator of his competitors.”
Despite the setback, the digital assets sector sees this as a significant moment. The industry has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying efforts, hiring political consultants and even bringing a few members of Congress onto their payroll. Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Seth Hertline, Head of Global Policy at crypto wallet firm Ledger, called the GENIUS Act a political litmus test for the broader crypto world. “If the GENIUS Act derails, everything behind it derails,” he said.
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