The US legislation that would establish the regulation of Stablecoin did not take a big step closer to reality on Thursday, since a wave of democratic resistance prevented the bill from moving to a debate phase, which would have been the way to an eventual vote on the passage.
The cryptographic industry has been watching the Senate closely, where the fate of its legislative battle has long been in balance this year. The first of the two main digital asset bills, this to regulate the stable such as the USDC of Circle and the USDT of Tether, ran into an obstacle of Congress, despite having easily won the bipartisan approval in a previous vote of the Senate Banking Committee.
A technical but vital vote to advance legislation on days of debate on the floor next week, failed 48-49. According to the rules of the Senate, 60 votes were needed to advance in the debate. Senators Josh Hawley and Rand Paul broke ranks with their Republicans to vote against advancing in the legislation. The leader of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, changed his vote to not at the end of the series of votes in a procedural movement to recover the legislation on a future date.
Some Democrats who had previously spoken in favor of the effort became against him in recent days, saying that the Stablecoin regime needed more safeguards against illicit behavior, especially highlighting the cryptographic business ties of President Donald Trump as a possible conflict of interest that was marked by many of them as corruption.
Senator Ruben Gallego, who received $ 10 million in the support of the Political Action Committees of the cryptographic industry during the 2024 elections, was among them, and said on the floor of the Senate before the vote: “I think there is a path for us to really do this, to do a good language, to have a bipartisan victory for this country”, but he said that the hard work and “good faith and” good faith.
“The reason why he is listening to some hesitation: legislation of this scope and importance cannot really be rushed, and we need time,” he said, added that he is not trying to close the process. “We want to bring this economy and this innovation to the United States.”
Gallego asked that the Republicans accept to retain the vote until at least Monday to give legislators time to “educate” the opponents of the bill in the legislative text, which had not been completed at the time the vote began.
Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, echoed that he hopes that the debate can still happen as soon as next week, noting that “the stables of the stable are undeniably part of the future of finance”, but argued that the “text is not yet finished” and needs to provide Americans more protections.
The Republicans, including the leader of the majority, John Thune, had encouraged the Senate to continue with an open debate, where changes could still be made.
“We must take the reins and make sure that all Americans can take care of their financial future,” said Senator Cynthia Lummis, the Wyoming Republican who directs a cryptographic subcommittee in the Senate. She said before the vote that senators “has been working for days recently, days, to take this bill to the floor” and has already taken many amendments of the Democrats.
“This is a bipartisan bill and had a bipartisan process from the beginning,” Thune said in comments after the vote in which he said that the Democrats refused to begin the debate that the Senate has been building. “The Democrats have been housed in every step of the road,” he added, noting that this is now the sixth version of the legislation.
“I just don’t understand it,” he said. The plan is now “to mention this legislation again if the Democrats are ready to get serious. Clearly today they are.”
Senator Bill Hagerty, who presented the bill in the first place, went further, saying that the legislators voted against the opening debate actually voted to “kill the cryptographic industry here in the United States.”
Read more: Senate Republicans make a plea to continue with Stablecoin’s debate
Update (May 8, 2025, 18:55 UTC): Add comments from the majority leader John Thune.
