Momentum builds in Washington to pass stablecoin legislation, marking a 'moment for us here in Congress now to act'

Movement on legislation to regulate stablecoins is underway this week as lawmakers in the House debated necessary provisions in the bill on Tuesday. The Senate committee will also assemble in the coming days to take a vote on proposed stablecoin rules.

This is the moment for Congress to act, said Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., on Tuesday during a House Financial Services Committee hearing focused on stablecoins and central bank digital currencies. Huizenga cited the Trump administration's actions over the past few weeks, including a White House crypto summit last week.

"There is a moment for us here in Congress now to act, and as legislators, it's ultimately up to us to provide the regulatory clarity needed to ensure that the U.S. dollar remains the dominant reserve currency, and I believe stablecoins can do that," Huizenga said. 

Lawmakers have legislation teed up in both the Senate and House to tackle stablecoin regulation. A handful of bipartisan legislators have been working to pass a stablecoin bill for years. However, like all previous congressional acts to advance crypto regulation, these various attempts had stalled out. Fifty days into Donald Trump's presidency, however, Congress is seemingly making crypto a priority — including by investigating claims of industry-wide debanking and repealing the controversial "DeFi Broker rule."

In February, House Financial Services Committee Republican Chair French Hill, R-Ark., alongside Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., released draft legislation to regulate stablecoins. That draft, called the STABLE Act, builds on work done over the years in the committee beginning in 2022. A sticking point for a previous draft was a provision that would have allowed state regulators to approve stablecoin issuances without Federal Reserve input.

The new bill differs slightly from the previous stablecoin bill. For example, it gives the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency the authority to "approve and supervise federally qualified nonbank payment stablecoin issuers " instead of including a federal path through the Federal Reserve for "payment stablecoin issuers."

Work is also underway in the Senate. Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., introduced a bill to regulate stablecoins called the "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins," dubbed the GENIUS Act. Though it is not a companion to the House's version, lawmakers say it shows an effort among Republicans to work on key issues.

That bill is set to be marked up in the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.

Ron Hammond, senior director of government relations at the Blockchain Association, called all the action "Stablecoin Spring" and said Congress is set on getting a stablecoin bill across the finish line.

"The House hearing today showed most of the Democrats and all the Republicans largely supporting the measures in the STABLE Act," Hammond said in a statement to The Block. "That same bipartisan spirit will likely be reflected in Thursday’s Senate Banking markup of the GENIUS Act. This will be set the stage for a comprehensive vote on the combined product, the STABLE GENIUS Act, sometime in the next two-to-three months.”

House hearing unfolds

In the House, lawmakers also heard from experts, including Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla, Global Head of Digital Assets at The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, among others, on Tuesday.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., who has shown support toward crypto, compared digital assets to cars.

"The proper legislative response to the automobile is not to ban it, it's not to sabotage it, it's to regulate it," Torres said. "It's to make it safer. And as far as I'm concerned, the proper role of Congress is not to sabotage digital asset transactions, but to make them safer, to strike a careful balance between financial stability and innovation."

Some Democrats revealed hesitancy toward Republican-led stablecoin bills. 

Top Democrat Rep. Waters of California criticized Trump over the launch of his memecoin and his executive order creating a strategic bitcoin reserve.

"Despite my belief that the Trump administration only wants crypto legislation that personally benefits them and protects their crypto financiers — I still hope we can work together on a bill that requires stablecoins be robustly and fairly regulated," Waters said.

The current Republican-led bill at play "strips away critical protections to shield investors from criminals," she added.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., criticized the GENIUS Act during Tuesday's hearing and said it needed to be amended "vigorously."

"I read the GENIUS Act over in the Senate — I'm a little weary about anything called genius coming out of the United States Senate — but there were so many problems with that and I'm hopeful, hopefully my colleagues, Mr. Hill, and others will amend that vigorously because it had huge, huge problems," Lynch said.