The U.S. Senate Banking Committee has revised the stablecoin bill in preparation for a vote.
Republican lawmakers extensively revised the GENIUS Act after bipartisan talks, and the Senate Banking Committee plans to vote on the stablecoin bill on March 13.
GOP Senator Bill Hagerty announced on March 10 that he had submitted an updated draft of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act ahead of its scheduled Banking Committee vote on March 13.
He emphasized that lawmakers from both parties participated in the bill’s revision process.
GOP Senators Cynthia Lummis and Tim Scott, the Banking Committee Chair, co-sponsored the bill along with Democratic Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Angela Alsobrooks.
“The updated version of the GENIUS Act makes significant improvements to a number of important provisions, including consumer protections, authorized stablecoin issuers, risk mitigation, state pathways, insolvency, transparency, and more,” Gillibrand said in a statement.
Hagerty originally introduced the bill in early February.
The bill places issuers of U.S. dollar stablecoins with market caps surpassing $10 billion, such as Tether and Circle’s USDC, under Federal Reserve jurisdiction.
Issuers below the $10 billion threshold can choose to operate under state-level regulation.
FOX Business reporter Eleanor Terrett shared the latest version of the GENIUS Act, and Dom Kwok, co-founder of the Web3 education app EasyA, stated in a post on X that the bill gives U.S.-issued stablecoins an advantage.
He noted that the bill now holds foreign stablecoin issuers to “extra high standards,” particularly regarding reserves, liquidity, anti-money laundering measures, and sanctions compliance.
“Most foreign issuers will find these standards hard to meet,” which gives Circle’s USDC and Ripple Labs’ Ripple USD (RLUSD) “an upper hand,” he said.
In another X post, Jeremy Hogan, a well-known crypto lawyer and partner at Hogan & Hogan, expressed a similar view. He stated that the bill’s emphasis on reserves and AML checks appears to favor RLSUD and USDC.
The GENIUS Act must navigate a long legislative process before becoming law.
The bill must first secure a vote from the Senate Banking Committee before proceeding to potential debate on the Senate floor.
If the Senate approves the bill, it will move to the House.
If the House does not alter the bill, it will go to President Donald Trump for final approval or veto.
