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On June 4, 2025, RealClear Markets published an op-ed by ATR’s Director of Innovation Policy, James Erwin.
This work explains stablecoins and their relevance before describing the benefits of regulatory legislation. Erwin then expounds on the future of the GENIUS Act and the STABLE Act in the Senate and House, respectively. Each bill would establish a legal framework for Dollar-backed stablecoins.
Erwin goes on to note the bipartisan support that each of these bills has received in their chambers. “The STABLE Act was introduced by Reps. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), while the GENIUS Act was introduced by Senator Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and drew the support of 14 Senate Democrats in a procedural vote before Memorial Day.”
Some crypto advocates have skepticism towards the STABLE and GENIUS Acts and would prefer the industry remains unregulated.
While this makes sense in principle, stablecoins are not the same as Bitcoin – they are tied to regulated commodities and currency reserves, so investors using them are not seeking the same unregulated anonymity that other crypto products offer. A regulatory framework specific to dollar-backed stablecoins, offering clear definitions and regulatory certainty, will enable banks to issue payment stablecoins without fear of a future crackdown.
Erwin then extols the strategic benefits of allowing private banks to issue stablecoins before the Federal Reserve can:
It will also ensure that the crypto industry is not displaced by any attempts at a central bank digital currency in the future. Crypto enthusiasts who rightly fear what a CBDC could mean for financial surveillance should support legitimizing dollar-backed stablecoins as a private sector alternative. Once hundreds of private banks begin to issue dollar-backed stablecoins, it will become far more difficult to displace them all with a CBDC issued by the Federal Reserve.
This legislation will be beneficial as stablecoins are tied to regulated currency reserves. But proponents of the GENIUS Act in the Senate must first defeat a pair of poison pill amendments offered by Senators Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).
The Marshall amendment contains the meat of the infamous Durbin-Marshall Credit Card Competition Act, a bill to ban the interchange fees that card networks use to fund rewards programs and network security. According to a recent study, the CCCA “would significantly reduce revenue for community banks and credit unions and – concomitantly – reduce access to credit in smaller markets across the United States, disproportionately affecting low-income households.” Including the CCCA in the GENIUS Act would contravene its purported goal, which is to increase access to financial services.
Erwin criticizes the non-germane amendment and believes it would turn the hurt smaller merchants disproportionately and could sink the GENIUS Act.
Worse still, if adopted, this amendment would turn the GENIUS Act into a Trojan Horse for price controls. It would amount to government price-fixing that disrupts preexisting commercial contracts between card networks, banks, and merchants, and it would ultimately disadvantage smaller merchants over big box stores with the market power to negotiate favorable terms with card networks that mom-and-pop stores lack. Not content to offer an amendment that is merely not germane to the bill, Senator Marshall has proposed a poison pill that could sink the GENIUS Act entirely.
Despite the hurdles the GENIUS Act faces, Erwin concludes that:
Stablecoins are a good, bipartisan policy win for retail investors. Congress should say no to price control poison pills and deliver a very STABLE GENIUS for the American people.
Read the full op-ed here.
