Senate stablecoin bill passes a key procedural vote

WASHINGTON — The Senate stablecoin bill has passed its full Senate cloture vote, setting it up for final approval by the upper chamber. 

The Senate voted 68-30 on the motion to invoke cloture on the latest version of the GENIUS Act, which sets up a regulatory regime for payment stablecoins. All Republicans voted in favor of the bill, alongside 18 Democratic lawmakers. 

“With the bipartisan GENIUS Act, we can do more than just pass a bill, we can deliver results for the American people,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., the bill’s sponsor, on the Senate floor. “We can bring clarity to a sector that’s been clouded by uncertainty, And we can make it known: The United States will lead, not follow, in the digital asset revolution.” 

Republicans picked up support from Sens. Andy Kim, D-Calif., and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., in the most recent vote.  Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., who previously voted the bill out of the Senate Banking Committee, did not vote in favor of it this time. 

The vote means that the bill will avoid the possibility of a filibuster as it moves toward final passage. Several Democratic lawmakers — who are key to the bill’s chances of success because it needs 60 votes in the Senate — still expressed anxiety about both President Donald Trump’s involvement in the crypto industry and loopholes involving  national security, fraud and other concerns that they say the bill leaves open. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, urged Democratic colleagues to withhold their votes on cloture. Earlier in the week, Sen. John Thune, the Republican majority leader, filled the amendment tree on the GENIUS Act when he invoked cloture, shutting down an open process that would have allowed related legislation, like the Durbin-Marshall swipe fee measure, to be added to the bill. 

“Over the past few months Democrats seem to have forgotten that we actually have some power,” Warren said. “This is an opportunity to use that power. Democrats can withhold their approval of this bill today and say that the bill will not go forward unless we have the opportunity to vote on amendments, precisely as Leader Thune promised we could do.”

Republican aides familiar with the process said some lawmakers wanted to avoid taking a position on a controversial vote on the swipe fee legislation, which puts them between two powerful lobbying interests: the payments industry and the retail industry.

The stablecoin bill has received criticism from bank and supervisory groups, who said clarity in the crypto and stablecoin space is needed but they had issues with parts of the bill. 

Banking groups have complained that the bill doesn’t do enough to prohibit the blending of banking and commerce, including not expressly limiting the activities of stablecoin issuers to those that directly support the work of issuing and redeeming stablecoins. 

State supervisors, meanwhile, say the bill could create a loophole for state-chartered special purpose depository institutions to operate anywhere in the U.S., regardless of whether they have the approval of individual state regulators. 

“Under the provision, an uninsured depository institution could engage in a wide range of financial activities — including custodial services, digital asset custody, fiduciary services, securities and commodities transactions and wholesale banking — without the consent of the host state’s banking commissioner or approval by the state legislature,” the National Conference of State Legislatures said in a letter to Senate leadership last week.