The Senate easily passed the landmark cryptocurrency bill Tuesday known as the GENIUS Act, after months of wrangling senators from both parties to build a coalition that could get it across the finish line.
Ultimately, 68-30 senators voted for it, with 18 Democrats voting with Republicans. Only one Republican voted against it. For Republican lawmakers, this vote gets them a step closer to delivering on their promise to make cryptocurrency a cornerstone of their platform — and of meeting Trump’s deadline for Congress to deliver crypto legislation by August.
“The GENIUS Act is going to create a history-altering movement in how we manage the global economy,” Sen. Tim Sheehy, who compared stablecoin payments with the adoption of paper money in America, told NOTUS on Monday.
Republicans immediately celebrated its passage.
Trending
“I’m delighted to see this done,” Sen. Bill Hagerty, a sponsor of the bill, told NOTUS after it passed. “This opens the door for innovation in America. That’s going to be very well received not only here but around the world.”
The GENIUS Act is a Republican-led piece of legislation that gives federal authorities regulatory power over stablecoin payments, a form of cryptocurrency with a value tied to physical assets like the dollar. It is the first major piece of legislation passed by the Senate in this space, and comes after months of difficult negotiations. Just last month, the legislation failed in a cloture vote in the Senate.
Republican sponsors of the GENIUS Act worked to pass it as a stand-alone bill, which requires votes from both parties to end debate and get to a final vote. Republicans made several concessions to Democratic lawmakers, which were amended into the bill last week.
“We finally rounded a corner where all of the extremely hard work to get it in a place where we had predictable bipartisan support paid off,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican and major proponent of crypto, told NOTUS.
While passing the Senate was a major hurdle, the House of Representatives still has to pass the bill. Which means that Congress’s negotiations on this issue aren’t over.
Despite the bill’s passage through the Senate, there are still GENIUS Act critics from both ends of the political spectrum.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican who opposed the GENIUS Act and the only one to vote against it, argued it would allow corporations to issue their own stablecoins. He said widespread support for this bill reflects how involved the industry is in congressional negotiations.
Big Tech is “gonna get this bill with a lot of giveaways to them in it, which I don’t love,” Hawley told NOTUS.
Democrats who opposed the bill said it would open the door to corruption, and slammed the process of passing it.
“Republicans rammed through this fatally flawed legislation without considering any amendments on the Senate floor — despite promises of an open amendment process and debate before the American people,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, in a statement after the vote. “I will keep fighting to ban Trump-style crypto corruption to prevent the sale of government policy by elected federal officials in Congress and the White House.”
—
Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
Author
