RegFi Episode 67: Stablecoins: The GENIUS Act Explained
39 min listen
FS Vector’s Jackson Mueller sits down with RegFi co-hosts Jerry Buckley and Sasha Leonhardt to discuss the recently Senate-passed GENIUS Act. They explore the regulatory requirements that would be established under the legislation, the potential impact on domestic and international payments system providers, and the implications for the U.S. dollar and the market for U.S. Treasury obligations. The group also discusses the political momentum driving this legislation and prospects that the Senate-passed bill will align with the STABLE Act pending in the House and be sent to the president for signature.
-
Jerry Buckley:
Hello. This is Jerry Buckley, and I am here with RegFi co-host Sasha Leonhardt. Our guest today is Jackson Mueller, who is a Principal at the FS Vector public advocacy firm, a leading firm in that space. We've invited him to join us to talk about the recently passed Senate stablecoin bill called the GENIUS Act. Prior to joining FS Vector, Jackson was policy director at the Digital Chamber and led the association's stablecoin policy working group. So, Jackson, you've been deep into this subject we're going to be discussing today for a long time. On June 17th, the United States Senate passed the first major stablecoin legislation to pass either House of Congress. The GENIUS Act, or Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, of 2025 was passed by the Senate.
A similar piece of legislation was reported by the House Financial Services Committee. This bill, called the STABLE Act or Stable Transparency and Accountability for Better Ledger Economy Act of 2025, is still under consideration in the House. For those of us who worked on Capitol Hill, the obvious strain involved in trying to come up with bill titles that can be reduced to descriptive acronyms can seem a bit absurd, but that's the custom. So, Jackson, while we've talked about stablecoins before on this RegFi podcast, it might be good to start out our discussion by describing what a stablecoin is and how it differs from other forms of digital currency, such as Bitcoin. And in that process, maybe you could give us a little bit of the background on the legislative environment and the involvement you've had in helping to shape the way stablecoin legislation would move forward. So, Jackson, welcome and look forward to your thoughts.Jackson Mueller: First of all, thank you, Jerry, for the introduction. And thank you, Sasha, as well, for having me on. Really, thank you both for your time and for the effort that went into this. Really appreciate the opportunity to be on this podcast. And thank you guys again for the time and effort put into this. Let me just kind of start off with a question of, “What are we talking about here?” And I always ask that when we're dealing with emerging technologies. I was involved in the financial technology space when it really first emerged in Washington, D.C., as a term "fintech" back in 2014, which feels like a century ago now. But I think, you know, that term became convoluted. Everything, including, you know, everyone's mother wanted to be a fintech company or be involved in the fintech space, right? And so, it became very difficult to understand exactly, you know, what are we talking about when we say fintech? And I think the same thing applies to what we're seeing here in the stablecoin space. Everyone says stablecoins, right?
Well, what are we really referring to? And I think there's, you know, a couple differentiations between various stablecoins, right? You could be talking about fiat-backed stablecoins, which is obviously the conversation of today at present and whether it's tied to one or a basket of several currencies. You can also be talking or referring to commodity-backed stablecoins, you know, referencing gold, or in some crazy cases, they've got a stablecoin out there referencing uranium, right? You can go all the way as to, you know, stablecoins backed by other cryptocurrencies or even go as far as algorithmic stablecoins, which really had their moment in time a few years ago. And then, of course, all sorts of crises emerged as a result of some of the algorithms in various de-pegging activities resulting from those collapses of the issuers. You also have kind of differences between interest-bearing and then non-interest-bearing stablecoins, right? And so, in most cases, we're looking at, you know, non-interest-bearing stablecoins, whereas the issuer keeps the yield or interest instead of passing it on to the holder.
You've also seen several cases in which various firms have actually come out with interest-bearing stablecoins. And frankly, I think there's a competitive shift to focusing much more on the issuance of these types of stablecoins. That being said, it's an early-stage effort there. And then, of course, you've got, you know, stablecoins involved in the cryptocurrency space and oftentimes, you know, used within the cryptocurrency term. But really, you know, the whole point of stable is that it's supposed to maintain a stable value in comparison to looking at your traditional kinds of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether and other cryptocurrencies, which are really subject to a lot of volatile swings in prices and that sort of thing. We've seen that for several years now. In the past, you've had, you know, stablecoins typically pegged to a specific asset or a combination of assets. And really, that provides a kind of assurance to buyers and sellers of cryptocurrency that the stablecoin's value will really kind of stay the same, both before and kind of after the transaction. And stablecoins are really used as a mechanism to really allow for significant volumes in crypto trading. Obviously, buyers and sellers don't want to be subject to wild price swings in the underlying cryptocurrency. And so, the use of stablecoins really protects against that volatility, right?
Of course, it's not always been the case that stablecoins have been stable. We've seen over the years some spectacular crashes, de-pegging away from the typical, you know, one-to-one ratio with a referenced asset. And that has certainly happened multiple times in the past, whether it's out from the algorithmic side of things, whether it's from traditional kind of stablecoins that are pegged to a specific fiat currency, right? In short, I think if you look at the asset or the combination of assets that were supposed to be there and supposed to be backing that stablecoin turned out not to actually be there at the end of the day, right? Now, at the same time, as we'll get into in this conversation, we're seeing expanding use cases of stablecoins beyond just their traditional means of facilitating crypto transactions and facilitating various investments in cryptocurrencies, and we'll get to that shortly. And so, happy to answer any additional kind of questions you have on that.
Oh, and Jerry, just to go back to your point on the legislative developments as it relates to stablecoins, and, hopefully, I keep a long story short here because, you know, we've seen a lot of activity over the last several weeks. But really, the activity has taken place for the better part of the last, I'd say, two years at least. We saw significant developments in the 118th Congress towards the tail end. You saw former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry working very closely with ranking member Maxine Waters on a bipartisan stablecoin effort. That ultimately kind of fell apart towards the summer. Republicans then kind of pushed for their, you know, stablecoin bill, which ended up passing out of the House Financial Services Committee in May on a 34-16 vote, and I think the name of that was the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act. But unfortunately, that never made its way through the House to the Senate, unlike kind of what we're seeing today, where we've seen the GENIUS Act voted out of the Senate and now moving on to the House.
I will say, though, that while talks broke down in the 118th Congress between McHenry and Waters and, you know, we didn't see a bill go through. We did see that in October, Senator Bill Hagerty put together a discussion draft in the Senate. That discussion draft has basically formed the basis of where, you know, the GENIUS Act is today. Now, obviously, there's been multiple revisions to that discussion draft and various additions and subtractions from that act. But really, that was kind of the grounds by which the Senate, when it turned over to Republican control in the 119th Congress, really took from that and then led forward with the GENIUS Act. We've had multiple hearings over the last two years on stablecoin policy and then also some other hearings that may not have specifically focused on stablecoins but which stablecoin policy was raised in those discussions. And right where that has led us to is both the House and Senate moving sort of in tandem as it relates to pushing for stablecoin legislation.
The Senate obviously has acted a little bit faster than the House and moved a bit more aggressively on the GENIUS Act, whereas the House voted on the STABLE Act in committee. And that happened in early April. And then, since then, I think a lot of the focus has been on where things are going in the Senate. And so, now there's obviously more clarity on that. As of last week, as you said, you know, we saw the GENIUS Act get passed out of the Senate. And now the House is considering a wide range of options as it relates to, you know, how they move forward on this, which I'm happy to kind of break into.Jerry: We'll get into a little bit more of that later, but Sasha. Sasha Leonhardt: Jackson, thank you for taking the time with us today. Stablecoins have been around for a while, but just where and how they should be regulated has been sort of a moving target over the years. With the Trump administration and Republican control of Congress, stablecoins have moved front and center on the agendas of the various financial services committees in the House and Senate, as you noted. But could you help us go the next level down and understand why and how stablecoins were able to move to the front of the line in a Congress that, otherwise, has been very busy so far? Jackson: Yeah. So, I mean, I briefly mentioned earlier, you know, about the legislative momentum that we had in the 118th Congress, right? So, we had a lot of movement, especially at the House side, House Financial Services Committee, really taking the effort to really push things forward, and then, obviously, the Senate kind of caught on in October with the Bill Hagerty discussion draft that came out. So, there was a lot of movement already on the legislative front. And frankly, while talks broke down in the House, you obviously saw the Senate kind of take up the lead position and move forward with the Hagerty discussion draft as they came into the 119th Congress. So, this conversation was already ongoing, right? So, you had a lot of momentum behind that already, and some of the key figures are still around this Congress. And so, again, you're seeing that kind of transition into a new Congress. And yet, the push and the momentum is still there for stablecoin policy. There's a bunch of other reasons, too, that we can get into a little bit deeper.
But, I think if you look at it an expansion beyond just trading use cases, right? So, we oftentimes think of stablecoins as being the mechanism by which fosters a lot of crypto-trading activity, provides you know kind of safety against the volatility of price movements, and that sort of thing, but really it's expanded beyond that and, in particular, you've seen some significant research come out talking about things that are happening in the Global South where they're not using stablecoins for crypto-asset trading. They're actually using them for a wide variety of other cases. In addition to that, I think there's been a lot of interest in dollar dominance of these markets, right? So, if you look at the stablecoin ecosystem today, I think a good 98, 99% of that ecosystem is referenced to the U.S. dollar, right? So, really, stablecoin legislation, if you think about it, is a way to capitalize on this momentum already of solidifying the dollar as the preferred payment method over these stablecoin rails, right?
And so, creating these guardrails, creating the frameworks around stablecoins, really solidifies kind of the U.S. positioning within the stablecoin market. And so, I think that's, you know, from a global perspective, from, you know, an increasing interest in expanding the types and offerings of payments, as well as expanding access and that sort of thing, that's certainly on the minds of various lawmakers on Capitol Hill. I also think, you know, being the U.S., we're very competitive here, right? And so, you've seen a lot of competitive frameworks emerge overseas, right? The EU has the MiCA regime over there, Markets in Crypto Assets. Hong Kong just announced their stablecoin regime within the last week. You've got the UK moving forward on their stablecoin framework and several other jurisdictions as well, you know, Middle East, in particular, comes to mind, as well as Korea, among others. So, you got a lot of jurisdictions kind of pushing forward on their own frameworks and, you know, from a competitiveness perspective and from the, you know, what we see is the importance of the stablecoin ecosystem. You know, I think there's a real push among the legislative body here to really enact some guardrails and frameworks that solidifies kind of the U.S. leadership in this space as we move forward.
And then, of course, we can get into this a little bit later to the extent you want to. But really, the biggest reason is that, you know, stablecoins provide an alternative avenue to purchase U.S. treasuries, right? There's a significant portion of the market that is tied to short-term U.S. treasuries, in particular, as the reserves that are backing a lot of the stablecoin activity that we see. And we've seen, certainly, some reports that have come out over the last several weeks, whether it's from Treasury or from industry, that really point to the importance of, kind of, the U.S. dollar-denominated or, you know, referenced stablecoin market.Jerry: Jackson, your last point is one that is pretty significant. When you look at the GENIUS Act, I think a lot of people are thinking of it as a way of creating a stablecoin regulatory framework in the United States that will build confidence in that marketplace and regularize it and prevent crises related to noncompliance, if you will. And it's looked on as a way of letting the dollar be tokenized, you know, around the world. It has immense potential for both the dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency and as a holder of treasuries, and the Treasury Department doesn't object to having a larger market for treasuries. But looking beyond that, will this legislation allow for other assets to be backing stablecoins, or is this going to have just a dollar-related reserve requirement? Jackson: Well, I think if you look at the way the required reserves are in the GENIUS Act currently, you know, you're looking at issuers must maintain reserves on a one-to-one basis, and they must consist of U.S. coins and currency, and that includes Federal Reserve notes, right? And then you've got funds held as demand deposits or insured shares depending if you're an IDI or a credit union. And that includes foreign branches or agents, and that includes correspondent banking involved in that. It also includes, you know, treasury bills, notes, and bonds, and then with a kind of a short-term maturity of 93 days or less. You've also got repurchase agreements and reverse repurchase agreements that are backed or collateralized by Treasury bills. You've got also securities issued by an investment company or other kind of registered government money market funds invested solely in the underlying assets that I previously mentioned. And then two additional requirements that are, at this moment, missing, or at least not specifically referenced in the STABLE Act, are, you know, any other similarly liquid federal government-issued asset approved by the primary federal payment stablecoin regulator, and that's in consultation with the state payment stablecoin regulator, and then also any previously mentioned required reserves in tokenized form, right?
So right now, it's really just a focus almost specifically on U.S. dollar cash and cash equivalents more than anything else at this point. Now, I guess that raises the question of: Well, what happens if you're a foreign stablecoin issuer of a non-U.S. dollar backed stablecoin — can you issue that within the United States? And, I still think that's sort of an open question at this point, considering the focus is really on U.S. dollar reserves and, you know, cash, cash-equivalent reserves. That being said, there might be a window of opportunity there for foreign issuers issuing, you know, a non-U.S. dollar reserve stablecoin in the sense that if the Treasury secretary deems the foreign jurisdiction to be comparable with the U.S. regulatory framework, then, I think, there's some, you know, leeway in allowing that. But of course, it's kind of to be determined.Jerry: Thank you. That's a helpful clarification. It also does leave stablecoins, which are nominally called stablecoins but are backed by assets other than treasuries or U.S. dollars, in more of a limbo that what their regulatory framework should be or must be is still, I think, left as a question if the GENIUS Act is not, you know, modified and goes forward as it stands. Jackson: Yeah. And I think it's interesting to also note that, you know, some of the foreign-predictions payment stablecoin regimes that are emerging now or are already implemented, you know, allow for both U.S. dollar and the non-U.S. dollar issuance of stablecoins. Right? So, whether you're collateralized by cash, cash equivalents, U.S. dollar or, you know, Dirham in the UAE, for instance, right? They allow for that optionality, and I'm hopeful that that's also allowed here, given some of the leeway we see. Jerry: Maybe turning to the substance of the regulatory framework that we're talking about, you know, what agencies are going to be regulating? What types of companies are authorized to apply to be regulated? What are the specific types of reserves — you've talked about this — that the stablecoin issuers must hold? And what regulatory requirements are there that our listeners should know about? Jackson: Yeah. I'll hold back from kind of making a Christmas list of the reserves that are required for stablecoins under the GENIUS Act because I just previously mentioned that. Jerry: Sure. Jackson: You know, for the purposes of the GENIUS Act, and to some extent what we see in the STABLE Act, you know, in allowing for both non-banks and banks to issue and, at the same time, allowing for kind of a dual pathway to issue stablecoins in the U.S. Now, that's either at the state level or at the federal level, right? And so, I'll get into that a little bit. But, you know, when you look at how the permitted payment stablecoin issuer is defined, you can either see it as a subsidiary of an insured depository institution that's approved to issue payment stablecoins. And that approval and governance really comes from the primary federal payment stablecoin regulator, which, you know, if you're an insured depository institution, will likely come from the FDIC or Fed, for instance. If you're an insured credit union or a subsidiary of the insured credit union, that oversight and governance is going to come from the NCUA.
Where it gets a little bit more interesting is, you know, the OCC's role in all this, especially as it pertains to more of the non-bank side of things, right? So, a federal qualified payment to stablecoin issuer. You know, think about non-bank entities that are approved by the OCC. You can also include in that uninsured national banks that are chartered and approved by the OCC. And then, that term also includes a federal branch approved by the OCC, right? So, the OCC has a big role there. And then, if you look at it from the term they use in the GENIUS Act, a state qualified payment stablecoin issuer is really overseen by the state payment stablecoin regulator, and that entity is not an uninsured national bank. It's an IDI, or a federal branch or a subsidiary of a national bank, federal branch or an IDI, right? So, there's multiple kinds of ways of governing these entities depending on what you are classified as and then the appropriate regulatory body or agency that ultimately either currently oversees you or will oversee you based on that classification, right?
Now, that's obviously going into a little bit of the weeds there, but I think it's interesting to point out several things within the GENIUS Act that may be of interest to some of your listeners. And in particular, as it relates to the bigger questions, master account access, and then, you know, the offering of interest or yield. You know, what we saw in the discussions around the GENIUS Act in subsequent revisions that we were reviewing and redlining, and everything like that, is that, obviously, you had a number of banking trades who were very concerned about both these issues. Our understanding, based on the legislative text, is that non-banks are not allowed to open a master account at the Fed and nor are, you know, non-banks permitted to — those that are qualified as, you know, a permitted payment stablecoin issuer or a foreign stablecoin issuer — they're not allowed to pay interest or yield to their holders, right? And I think back to the days of when money markets first emerged and, you know, the concerns about deposit flight resulting from the introduction of money market funds. And I think a similar concern was echoed here. And I think it's important to note that this prohibition against yield — or the payment of yield or interest to the holders of the stablecoin by the issuer — really that's where the prohibition targets.
Now, it's still an open question, and it remains to be seen whether that prohibition extends to exchanges offering yield or interest, or if there's any other party that may receive payment from the issuer in connection with the stablecoin, right? And this is a concern that's been raised by various banking trades, and Senate Democrats, in particular, worried that the prohibition on interest is — because it's specifically focused on the issuer itself — may not actually capture other entities which could offer that interest to holders in separate ways. And so, that sort of needs to be addressed. You saw it in the Senate Banking Committee that they recently released a notice that said, look, you know, while the bill bans issuers from offering yield or interest on payment stablecoins, the committee also acknowledged that, and I quote, "Crafting a legal framework for yield-bearing products would require separate legislation," right? So, it really remains to be seen whether that language is broadened as the House kind of takes up the GENIUS Act or it remains the same. And that, again, goes to process, which we can talk about in a little bit.
On the non-bank side, you know, sticking with non-banks, I think one of the interesting things on the GENIUS Act is that it incorporates a provision that's titled, “Non-financial Services, Public Companies.” And really, that's meant to prevent domestic or foreign non-financial public companies from issuing payment stablecoins. Unless, of course, the company receives a unanimous vote from the stablecoin certification review committee. And we can get into that a little bit later. But, what's interesting there, of course, is, well, what does that mean for the non-financial, non-public firms? Right? And so, there are a number of, you know, you can classify them as big techs that are not public, right? If you think X or other large messaging platforms that have been thinking about stablecoins previously, you know, what happens to those entities and are they captured in some sort of way?
You know, I think more on the lines of some of the more banking kind of prudential types of requirements that you see. So BSA, AML compliance under the GENIUS Act, permitted payment stablecoin issuers are classified as financial institutions under this act. Thus, they're subject to BSA/AML, sanctions compliance standards and requirements. But, it's interesting that the act also allows for a tailoring of those requirements based on the risk profile, the model that the issuer employs. On the capital and liquidity side of things, you know, again, those requirements are really tailored to the model and risk profile of the issuer. However, those requirements are specifically not to exceed the requirements that are sufficient to ensure ongoing operations of a permitted payment stablecoin issuer. And the way that we read that is that if they do get into stablecoin issuance, banks would not be subject or not be required to hold additional capital against stablecoin reserves unless a regulator makes a specific determination that such capital is ultimately needed.
On the foreign issuer side, that's where you get into some interesting dynamics at play and some of the differences between both the STABLE and GENIUS Acts. But when you're focusing on the GENIUS Act in particular, it basically says a foreign payment stablecoin issuer may operate in the U.S. if it's regulated by a foreign authority whose regulatory regime is deemed comparable to the U.S. kind of U.S. framework, whether that's GENIUS Act or some other stablecoin bill, most likely GENIUS Act. If it's registered with the comptroller, the OCC, if it holds sufficient reserves in a U.S. financial institution to meet the liquidity needs of its U.S. customers unless an alternative arrangement is approved, and then if the issuer is not based in a jurisdiction where the U.S. has applied economic sanctions to or designated the jurisdiction as a primary money laundering concern. So, that's just a few of the variety of provisions within the act, but something to keep in mind and to raise.Sasha: Jackson, thank you for that. I think that's a really helpful summary. To shift this a bit to industry and, in particular, how that's going to look. It's been suggested that a regulated stablecoin could have a transformative impact on the payment system in particular. We've heard that it could affect incumbent providers of payment services and may even serve as a tool to open the way for new companies to enter the payments market. To focus on the first of those categories, how is this playing out with incumbent providers of payment services? Jackson: Yeah, in two ways. It's kind of an offense-defense. I just literally watched Top Gun Maverick the other day, so apologies for that reference. But really, what you're seeing is in the legislation itself, you had a number of revisions to the GENIUS Act, and especially that came in kind of later on in the process, where you saw various trades take issue with an issuer's ability to engage in non-payment stablecoin activities. So, there was a lot of concern expressed about, you know, these issuers being able to lend and do all sorts of other activities, right? And really, the revisions towards the end of the GENIUS Act, within just the Senate, made sure that those limitations were much more firmly entrenched, the limitations on permitted payment stablecoin issuers, and that it removed that non-payment stablecoin activities to only focus just on the payment stablecoin side of things, right? And so, you know, I saw that as a bit of a defensive move.
But offensively, I mean, you guys have seen this as well. We're constantly seeing news within the last, I'd say, you know, several weeks, if not several years now, where you've got like, you know, traditional card networks, you know, like Visa and MasterCard looking at what this stablecoin legislation ultimately means and stablecoins more generally, right? The Wall Street Journal just ran an article today talking about how Fiserv is working with its 3,000-plus clients, many of them community banks and regional banks, to develop a platform that really helped get them all set up in the stablecoin ecosystem. And exactly what that looks like remains to be seen, but very interesting nonetheless, right? You've got others looking at this from a perspective of, well, not directly issuing, but how can we be a part of this in some other way, shape or form, like custodial activities or something of that nature, right? You've seen obviously recent news, you know, out of Amazon and Walmart and among other kind of retailers looking at this as well.
I think one of the interesting things is you've started to see major banks start moving into this, right? So Société Générale, about a week ago, launched kind of the first U.S. dollar stablecoin on Ethereum and Solana, and really that became the first major bank to issue a dollar-pegged stablecoin. And then even before that, you saw, you know, Custodia Bank, working with Vantage Bank, to issue the first ever stablecoin on a permissionless blockchain in the U.S., and that was earlier this year. You've also seen other firms such as Figure working with the SEC to come out with a yield-bearing stablecoin. That happened, I believe, earlier this year as well. So, there's all different types of movements, all different players, with the exception of some of the defensive language, all looking to become invested in this in some way, shape, or form, right? And what that ultimately looks like and how that ultimately shapes out to be is dependent on really what these provisions within the GENIUS Act ultimately mean and what they'll look like once they go through the required rulemaking process.Jerry: It's a fascinating process, and you've been close to it for so long. We're at a transformative moment in American finance. There's no question about it. In world finance! And stablecoins are an important part of it. There is bipartisan support for this legislation, clearly, but there is also a concern, particularly among some progressive Democrats, you know, Senator Warren, Maxine Waters. They're critical of the act and its potential. Could you just briefly, because our time is short, describe what their concerns are? Jackson: Yeah, I mean, sometimes they fluctuate a bit, the goalposts shift. But I mean, really what we've seen over the last, I think, several weeks in particular is a real attention to conflicts of interest. Right? So, as the stablecoin legislation has moved through, whether it's, you know, the House Financial Services Committee, if you're thinking about the STABLE Act and the markup that took place there in early April, or everything that's taken place in the Senate as it relates to the GENIUS Act and moving it onto the floor and then ultimately, as of last week, moving it off the floor into the House. The, you know, the Trump family ties with various cryptocurrency entities and then going a little bit broader than that, focusing on meme coins as well as World Liberty Financial announcing USD1. That has all raised alarm bells among a variety of the progressive Democrats, and they've continued to echo those concerns throughout the process and especially over the last several weeks. And in fact, in some of these markup sessions, you actually had Democrats stand up and leave or hold their own kind of separate standalone hearing kind of focused on these conflicts of interest. Right?
So, it is a pressing concern. It remains to be seen whether the GENIUS Act and/or the STABLE Act — whether there's greater conflict of interest provisions put into that legislation — that kind of remains to be seen. But, that's really a big concern from their end. In addition to that, you've also got operational risk, illicit financing risks. I think there's concerns among those progressive Democrats, and just Democrats more generally, that the anti-money laundering provisions within the GENIUS Act, for instance, are not enough, and so, I think there's a big focus on that. But really, what has slowed discussions down to some extent and what has — to be honest with you, I thought GENIUS Act was done and likely off the floor by early May. And then it took us about a month and a half later just because of all this news that came out, in particular about Trump and the family's ties to various crypto entities, that really kind of slowed the discussion down a bit, and certainly raised concerns as to, well, how many Democrats are we going to get on board the GENIUS Act, in particular, because in the Senate, votes matter much more than they do in the House, where it's a simple majority. You know, in the Senate, you got to get the 60 votes, right? So, you're going to need some of those Democrats to jump on board, right?
You know, to the extent that those news releases, those announcements, certainly made a mark and have continually raised concerns among, you know, rank and file in the Democrats' side of the aisle. And in addition to that, I think, you know, you've also got, you know, looking beyond just Democrat concerns, you also have Republican concerns as it relates to, you know, the role of big tech in this space, right? And, certainly, we've heard from a few senators on this issue in the past. And so, there are various concerns that were echoed in the Senate. You're likely to hear several of those concerns echoed in the House. But that conflict-of-interest stuff has really taken supplanted kind of money laundering concerns, illicit finance concerns, anything else, and really become the top issue among Democrats in particular.Jerry: Jackson, we are actually beyond our time. Everything you have said has been very valuable and informative to our listeners and to us. But I'll give you one last chance. Is there anything else that you think our listeners should be aware of? Particularly, is this legislation going to pass and when? And then, you know, any other thoughts that you'd like to offer? Jackson: Yeah, I'll just be real quick. But, I think you've seen in the 24 hours after GENIUS Act passed, you've seen Senate Republicans coinciding with statements by President Trump himself, as well as Trump administration officials and even some prominent cryptocurrency firms, echo the need for the House to pass the GENIUS Act — clean, no amendments. Let's just rubber stamp this thing and get this through, right? So, you've got the administration and Senate and some of the bigger players in the space really in unison on this. On the House Financial Services side, you know, you've heard from Committee Chairman French Hill that, ideally, he'd like to package both stablecoin policy in with the market structure. And right now, the House Financial Services Committee just recently pushed through the CLARITY Act. That is now on the House floor — that, we can have a whole other discussion on that. But that's really the bigger brother in this picture. And so, what French Hill has wanted to do is kind of combine the two and then send that back to the Senate.
However, because of what we heard over the 24 hours post-GENIUS Act passage and the fact there's a lot of alignment already between, you know, with the Administration and the Senate, that puts a lot of pressure on the House side. And it remains to be seen, and we'll understand more this week, whether the House takes a scalpel to the GENIUS Act and inserts their own provisions as well as potentially holds it until it ties in with market structure or — given the amount of pressure being applied by both the Senate and the administration — whether we get a simple, you know, rubber stamping of the GENIUS Act and then it goes back to the Senate and, hopefully, onto the President's desk, sooner rather than later. That all remains to be seen.
I know French Hill is obviously giving remarks today at the Brookings Institute, where he'll likely be asked about this, so we'll see what happens then. And then, you know, all throughout the week, there will be all sorts of developments and announcements, I'm sure. So, we'll see what happens. But, if it's going to get rubber stamped, it's going to get rubber stamped, and it's going to move quickly. And so, we could see the GENIUS Act, you know, on the president's desk sometime by the end of this month, possibly.Jerry: It's interesting. And a 4th of July recess is coming up, and that seems to be a deadline people tend to work toward. Well, this has been extraordinarily informative, Jackson. Really appreciate your thoughts. And clearly, it would be a useful thing to come back and talk about it again once it's passed and the regulatory process starts to take hold, assuming that it passes. And we're very grateful to you for your time and for being with us. Thank you so much. Jackson: Yeah, thank you. And a big hat tip to the staff on Capitol Hill who have been working tirelessly on this for the last several months now. So, kudos to all. Jerry: Great. Thanks.