After years of thwarted attempts to officially green-light cryptocurrency trading, a key US Senate panel is moving quickly to bring those plans to fruition

The Senate Banking Committee's bipartisan approval this month of the “GENIUS Act” (S. 919), which would set standards for regulating dollar-based stablecoin issuers and transactions

After years of thwarted attempts to officially green-light cryptocurrency trading, a key US Senate panel is moving quickly to open that door with bipartisan approval of landmark stablecoin legislation and likely advancing President Donald Trump’s pick for a pro-crypto Wall Street regulator.

The Senate Banking Committee’s bipartisan approval this month of the GENIUS Act (S. 919), which would set standards for regulating dollar-based stablecoin issuers and transactions, puts the the bill on the fast track for a vote by the full chamber over objections from ranking member Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

The prospect of the bill becoming law and Paul Atkins securing the helm of the Securities and Exchange Commission signals a crypto-friendly approach all across Washington, in stark contrast to the Biden era. It’s a marked turnaround for an industry that’s learning to flex its political muscle.

The Senate Banking panel approved the stablecoin bill by an 18-6 vote on March 13 with backing from five Democrats, despite critiques that it would enable tech billionaires to take advantage of costly government bailouts and consolidate power for their companies by launching dollar-based tokens.

“It’s a very lax, lenient act that opens the door very wide with relatively few guardrails and safeguards,” said Arthur Wilmarth, a professor emeritus at George Washington University Law School who studies financial regulation and crises. “It allows essentially almost any type of entity to get into the stablecoin business.”

The act also carves out stablecoins beyond the SEC’s purview, explicitly stating they aren’t securities and that nonbank issuers will be overseen by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which typically focuses on bank regulation and supervision.

Both regulators have been targeted for staffing cuts, with some 500 employees accepting buyouts for early retirement or resignation at the SEC, while 140 OCC workers accepted buyouts after the agency terminated 76 probationary employees last month.

“The whole background of our nation’s financial history is that we should keep banking and commerce separate,” Wilmarth said. “If you put these giant commercial institutions together with major financial institutions, problems in one area are going to spill over to the other, inevitably.”

Stablecoin ‘Diving Board’

Digital-asset industry players spent years attempting to reconcile different state and federal guidelines around stablecoins, said Nassim Eddequiouaq, a co-founder and CEO of stablecoin issuance platform Bastion.

“The amount of interest that we’ve seen due to the GENIUS Act has been greater in the last two months than in the two years before that.”

Using blockchain technology to maintain the priority of the US dollar internationally has bipartisan appeal, said Jenny Cieplak, a partner at Latham & Watkins LLP who advises clients on crypto-related regulatory issues.

“More product evolution is going to make these products more widely adopted,” she said. “Payment services providers are going to find it useful for transfer of funds outside the US, between various jurisdictions, but I don’t think that the real killer app for the regular US market user is there yet.”

The SEC’s former regulatory approach to crypto was far less permissive, exemplified by its enforcement action against Terraform Labs over alleged fraud involving its TerraUSD stablecoin, leading to a $4.47 billion settlement last year.

Under then-Chair Gary Gensler, the agency also pursued an investigation into a Binance-branded stablecoin, which it ended without an enforcement action against issuer Paxos Trust Co.

The Senate bill and the parallel STABLE Act discussion draft in the House have raised alarms among policy makers—including Warren, House Financial Services Committee ranking member Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif., and some Federal Reserve Board members—about a potential bailout in the event of a bank run or collapse.

“Everybody and his brother who can now get one of these stablecoin issuers, now they all become candidates for bailouts,” Wilmarth said. “I hope that before this gets to the floor of the Senate that people will reconsider how high that diving board is before jumping off, and exactly how much water is in the pool down below.”

Atkins Returns

The Senate Banking Committee has another chance to fling the door open for crypto industry expansion, with Paul Atkins’ confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday.

The SEC under acting Chair Mark Uyeda has drastically pared back crypto scrutiny by dropping the bulk of litigation against digital asset exchanges, refashioning its crypto enforcement team into a smaller cyber unit, and forming a task force to tackle possible crypto rulemaking.

With Paul on deck, the SEC is set to be led by a one-time commissioner who became a vocal crypto proponent and adviser to industry players.

Atkins resigned in December from a role as co-chair of the Token Alliance, a crypto advocacy group affiliated with the Digital Chamber, and he’s worked for clients including crypto brokerage FalconX, according to ethics disclosures released