FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 13, 2025
CONTACT: Carter Dougherty, carter@ourfinancialsecurity.org
Senate Banking Committee Passes Flawed Stablecoin Bill
Measure passes after dozens of strengthening amendments are voted down
Washington, DC – Consumer advocates decried the Senate Banking Committee’s passage today of a flawed bill – S. 919, the GENIUS Act – that would legitimize a risky class of crypto assets known as stablecoins and embed them more deeply into the banking system. Despite the bill’s numerous failures to address critical consumer protection, financial stability, and illicit finance issues associated with these assets, a majority of Committee members voted in favor of the bill.
“The Committee should have at least offered crypto consumers using stablecoins the same protections and safeguards found in traditional financial systems, but instead it passed a bill that provided window dressing for consumers and a windfall for the crypto industry,” said Mark Hays, Associate Director for Cryptocurrency and Financial Technology with Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress. “By voting for this bill, Members of Congress are in danger of ignoring the regulatory mistakes of the past by adopting light touch regulations that could amplify systemic risk and increase the chances that the next crypto crash will reverberate across the financial system, harming crypto investors and the real economy.”
Prior to the hearing, more than 20 national consumer advocacy groups urged Committee members in a letter to oppose the bill, citing numerous concerns. Members of the committee voting against the bill echoed these concerns and offered dozens of amendments to strengthen the bill. But none were approved, apart from a few cosmetic measures included in a manager’s amendment.
One chief concern lawmakers and advocates raised is the possibility that the bill lacked robust regulatory oversight that would restrict Big Tech platforms like Amazon, Meta, or X from issuing their own branded platform stablecoins. This would allow them to effectively issue their own private currencies with scant oversight, which could cause a host of consumer, privacy, and economic harms.
And, in a twist of cold irony, news broke during the hearing that the Trump-affiliated crypto platform World Liberty Financial has been in talks with Binance to create a joint stablecoin. Binance is already the world’s largest crypto platform, and in 2023 it pled guilty to charges that Binance and its founder facilitated money laundering and sanctions evasion.
“Senators should stand up to the crypto broligarchy and its gusher of campaign cash because if this bill passes, the next crypto catastrophe could trigger a financial meltdown that will rival or eclipse the 2008 financial crisis,” said Hays. “This bill paves the way for Big Tech and Elon Musk to issue corporate currencies that pose real risks for customers and the economy.”
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