The U.S. House Financial Services Committee has now passed a bill to regulate stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency which is pegged to another asset like the U.S. dollar, in a 32-17 vote. The Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy or STABLE Act, introduced on February 6, will now proceed to the House floor for further voting. The committee’s chair French Hill and Digital Assets Subcommittee’s chair Bryan Steil drafted the bill, reportedly with assistance from Tether, a major global stablecoin issuer.
The STABLE Act aims to set rules around payment using stablecoins and mandates stablecoin issuers to disclose information about their operations and how they back their tokens. However, this move has faced criticism from the leading Democrat of the Committee, Maxine Waters, who voted against the bill, citing concerns about potential misuse for personal gains.
Simultaneously, another related piece of legislation named the GENIUS Act is weaving its way through Congress that presents supervision and reserve rules for stablecoin issuers. The U.S. Senate Banking Committee has approved the GENIUS Act in an 18-6 vote on March 13. Both the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act will be debated on the House and Senate floors, following which they will be put to vote.
Crypto correspondent Eleanor Terrett revealed that two anonymous crypto lobbyists mentioned a likely coordinated effort in the next few weeks to synchronize the two bills due to the current differences between them. This move will prevent the need to set up a conference committee to negotiate a final mutually agreeable version of the bill.