Yesterday the US Senate Banking Committee passed the GENIUS Act to regulate payment stablecoins by a vote of 18 to 6. This was despite the defeat of dozens of Democrat proposed amendments by votes of 13 to 11 during the markup session. It was not as one-sided as appears, given suggestions were already included in the draft legislation in different forms. One issue not previously reported is that the latest iteration of the Bill excludes stablecoins that provide interest or yield.
The goal is to have a Bill for President Trump’s signature by the end of April. There are several steps still needed, including a full Senate vote and integration with the House STABLE Act Bill. However, given the number of Democrat Committee votes in favor of the Senate Bill, the outlook looks optimistic.
At the start of the markup session a bipartisan package of amendments was approved. While the details were mentioned rather briefly (see later), one of these amendments covered ‘integrity’ assessments of stablecoin issuers. This overlapped with several more specific Democrat proposals aiming to ensure that issuers had not participated in sanction breaches or enabled drug traffickers or child pornographers, amongst others. Hence, these proposals were rejected.
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