Washington – After weeks of judgments and departures, the Senate Republicans teamed up with a block of democrats on Tuesday to adopt a historic cryptocurrency bill which would establish the first regulatory framework for stablecoins issuers.
The voting on the law on engineering was 68-30, 18 democrats joining most of the Republicans in favor. Only two Republicans – Rand Paul from Kentucky and Josh Hawley of Missouri – voted against.
Voting was the first time that the Senate has adopted major legislation regulating digital assets.
“With this bill, the United States is one more step to become the world leader in crypto,” said senator Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., The author of the Genius Act, in a floor speech. “This bill will cement the domination of the US dollar, it will protect customers, it will stimulate demand for American treasury bills.”
“Today, we will remember him as an inflection point for innovation in the United States of America,” he said.
The act of engineering is now going to the house led by Les Républicains, who worked to adopt his own bipartite bill focused on the creation of a regulatory framework for digital assets.
Washington continues to fight with the best way to regulate the rapidly growing cryptocurrency industry. The Democrats were divided on the issue, some in the party pushing the Congress to do more to slow down an industry which they consider to be conflicts of interest for President Donald Trump and his family.
The Senatoric Banking Committee adopted a previous version of the Engineering Act in April, with the support of five Democrats. But the chief of the minority Chuck Schumer, Dn.y., and the Democrats – as well as two Republicans – prevented the bill from advancing on the ground in May when they demanded stronger national security provisions and the fight against money laundering.
A group of bipartite negotiators – Hagerty and Sens. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.; Mark Warner, D-VA.; Kirsten Gillibrand, dn.y.; Angela Alsobrooks, D-MD.; And Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. – Later, concluded an agreement on the changes to the bill which discussed key points for the Democrats.
The changes have called for consumer protection guarantees and limits to technological companies issuing floors, digital tokens set for fiduciary currencies such as the US dollar, and they were extending ethics standards to special government employees.
The bipartite agreement unlocked the support of a wider group of democrats, and the legislation has advanced on the ground after crossing the threshold of 60 vote.
“I think that because we worked so hard and so long with them that it made a few others to” yes “. And so I think it’s a real legislative victory, “Lummis told NBC News before the vote. “They got more of what they wanted. They should vote yes, because they had an extremely influential influence to shape the legislation. ”
But other democrats were frustrated than nothing in revised legislation explicitly prevents Trump and his family from continuing their cryptographic companies. New financial disclosure forms reveal that Trump has made one of his biggest fortunes last year, $ 57.3 million, on the cryptocurrency of his family, World Liberty Financial.
“This is a bill that has been written by the industry that will overcome the profitability of Donald Trump’s cryptographic corruption, while undergoing consumer protection and weakens our national defense,” News Elizabeth Warren, D-MASS told NBC News.
The legislation includes a language which “prohibits any member of the congress or senior executive official to issue a product of payment stall during their stay in the public service”.
But Warren argued that legislation is not strong enough to prevent terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminals from using stablecoins for illicit purposes.
The bill “is in a better place, but it’s not in a fairly good place,” she said.
Brennan Leach contributed.
