The US Senate has passed the GENIUS Act, marking a significant step toward establishing a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins—a class of cryptocurrency tied to traditional assets like the US dollar, Axios reports.
The bill passed by a vote of 68–30 on Tuesday, concluding a month of bipartisan negotiations and political debate.
The legislation represents one of the few bipartisan compromises in the current Congress. Despite ongoing tensions, including internal disputes within the Democratic Party over potential conflicts of interest involving former President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency holdings, lawmakers advanced the bill without including provisions specifically addressing political corruption.
The GENIUS Act emerged from a complex and often contentious negotiation process, with a small group of Democratic and Republican senators revising the legislation in recent weeks. While those revisions helped secure its passage, they did not include measures sought by some Democrats to regulate financial activity by public officials.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a leading progressive voice in Congress and a vocal critic of the bill, urged opposition due to the absence of safeguards against misuse of digital currencies by political figures. Nonetheless, the bill’s authors, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), succeeded in rallying support across the aisle to push the measure through.
The GENIUS Act’s passage is seen as a foundational move in what is expected to be a long and complex effort to regulate the cryptocurrency sector. Lawmakers now face a broader challenge in developing policy around digital asset markets, including structural issues such as trading platforms, investor protections, and enforcement authority.
