Crypto Week Bills Stall Over Demands for Ban on CBDC

The legislative project dubbed “Crypto Week” stumbled Tuesday (July 15) when a group of House Republicans demanded changes to a stablecoin bill that was passed earlier by the Senate.

These lawmakers joined with Democrats to stop a procedural step that is required to allow consideration of the three crypto-related bills that make up Crypto Week, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

Following that vote, House Republican leaders met to discuss next steps and told the chamber that they would not hold another vote Tuesday, according to the report.

Several of the Republicans who voted to halt the progress of the bills, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, said they wanted to add a provision to the stablecoin bill that would ban the Federal Reserve from issuing digital currency, per the report.

While another one of the three bills being considered during Crypto Week would impose that ban, these Republicans sought to combine the two bills, according to the report.

Doing so would send the bill back to the Senate for consideration, rather than to President Donald Trump for his signature, per the report.

A Republican senator told Bloomberg that if the bill is amended in the House and sent back to the Senate, it is likely to fail to get the votes needed for passage.

Trump and his White House aides are likely to press the House Republicans to make a deal to pass the current version of the bill, according to the report.

The three bills being considered during Crypto Week could represent the mainstreaming of crypto not just as an asset class, but as a regulated industry within global finance, PYMNTS reported Monday (July 14).

They include the GENIUS Act, which would regulate stablecoins and require full asset backing; the CLARITY Act, which would define when digital tokens are securities or commodities; and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

It was reported Friday (July 11) that investors’ optimism around crypto legislation and the progress it was making in Congress contributed to bitcoin hitting an all-time high that day.

U.S.-listed crypto stocks were also being lifted by investors’ bets that crypto would enjoy policy wins in Congress during Crypto Week.