GENIUS Act for Stablecoins Passes House on Way to Being First Major U.S. Crypto Law

The first significant crypto bill is on its way to being signed into law after the U.S. House of Representatives passed stablecoin-regulating legislation known as the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which now gets forwarded to President Donald Trump.

The landmark legislative achievement for the crypto industry marks a sharp turnaround from recent years in which the sector languished under resistant U.S. regulators and a Congress unable to finish policy efforts. And it follows close behind another major House action to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (known as "CLARITY") — a bill that will establish a full set of rules over the wider crypto markets.

The GENIUS Act passed 308-122. Because it arrived as a Senate bill with a 68-30 approval in that chamber, all it needs now is a presidential signature before it becomes the law of the land. Regulators can then begin establishing regulations for the conduct of stablecoin issuers — a field currently dominated by Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC but which has drawn a high level of attention from traditional financial institutions, including Wall Street banks.

The legislative process again showed a large number of Democrats joining the Republican majority in favor of tailored regulations for the U.S. crypto industry. The Democrats in opposition argued the rules as proposed remained too dangerous for investors and potentially allowed for abuse by financial firms.

The Clarity Act remains the more important of the industry's two legislative goals for this Congress, but lobbyists will now focus their entire attention on that more complex effort. The House's market structure bill passed with a 294-134 vote on Thursday. But the issue now gets taken up by the Senate, which is widely expected to go its own way and remains in the drafting process.

Senator Tim Scott, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said that he wants the Senate to complete market structure legislation by Sept. 30, and that the House's work will offer a "strong template."

Industry lobbyists were concentrating closely on the scale of Democratic support on the bill, considering that number to be a controlling factor in how much pressure the Senate will feel to act. In the end, the cause didn't disappoint on its significant support from Democrats. A third bill, the Anti-CBDC Surveillance Act, saw more partisan support, passing on party lines with just two Democrats in favor. This bill will be attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, as it's unlikely to win sufficient bipartisan support in the Senate on its own.

Earlier this year, when he invited crypto leaders to a summit at the White House, Trump had set a deadline before the August congressional break for finishing both of the industry's top legislative priorities. The stablecoin effort marks the first step, though market structure remains the more important legislation, and policy analysts have predicted the work could miss Trump's deadline considerably, potentially dragging later into the year.

The president's influence over crypto policy has been considerable — a point of contention for Democrats who say his personal stake in the industry is inappropriate. However, an 11th-hour negotiation with holdout Republicans on Tuesday's "Crypto Week" procedural actions ended with Trump boasting that he'd brought them back on board, only to find later that they'd continue their opposition for most of a day.

UPDATE (July 17, 2025, 20:06 UTC): Adds Anti-CBDC Act vote.