Cnn
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The Senate voted 66-32 Monday evening to advance the first legislation of its kind to regulate the “stablecoins”, a kind of cryptocurrency. Democrats initially voted to block the bill earlier this month during the concerns about President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency agreements.
The legislation, known as Genius Act, focuses on what is called Stablecoin, a digital currency linked to the value of a specific asset – in this case the US dollar. Pressure for the bill represented a rare bipartite effort in the Senate for major legislation. But although there has been a general agreement through the Senate according to which the regulations are necessary, the main democrats initially fell to go from before after requiring changes in the legislation.
The Republicans and the Democrats continued to negotiate after the bill failed to move forward, which led to a new project of modification during the weekend which collected enough support among the Democrats to advance the package.
However, the Democratic Caucus remained divided into its support for the bill; While more than a dozen Democrats voted with the Republicans to move it forward, the senior democratic leadership – including the head of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, and the minority whip Dick Durbin – voted against the end.
“Stablecoins are already playing an important role in the global economy, and it is essential that the United States promulgates legislation that protects consumers, while allowing responsible innovations,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said in a statement, one of the first democratic bills of the bill on Friday.
“The Bipartite Engineering Act will provide regulatory clarity to this important industry, will maintain innovation on shore, add robust consumer protection and reaffirm the domination of the US dollar,” said Gillibrand.
Senator Mark Warner, who had voted with his colleagues Democrats to block the bill earlier this month, insisting that he was “not yet complete,” a statement published on Monday by encouraging his colleagues to vote yes on the bill, calling him a “significant step”, while still recognizing democrats on Trump’s crypto traffic.
“Many senators, including me, have very real concerns regarding the Trump family use of cryptographic technologies to escape surveillance, hiding shady financial transactions and personally benefiting from the costs of daily Americans. We have a duty to highlight these abuses and to prevent Donald Trump from exploiting emerging technologies to enrich himself, not to compensate, and weaken the backups that protect American consumers and the rule of law. ”
“Innovation in this space occurs, with or without us. We are responsible for ensuring that this happens safely, in a transparent manner and in a way that advances the interests of economic and national security. The engineering law will help us start, “said Warner.
However, as some Democrats insisted that an imperfect bill is better than any regulatory legislation, the best democrat of the Senate banking committee has argued the opposite. In a speech on the Senate prosecution on Monday afternoon, senator Elizabeth Warren insisted: “Although a strong stable bill is the best possible result, this weak bill is worse than no bill.”
Warren opposed the previous versions of the Act on Engineering, warning that the bill attempts to regulate stablecoin are toothless and could harm consumers, stimulate corruption and even lead to a potential financial crisis.
