As we reported on Monday, a bill called the GENIUS Act would set up a relatively weak regulatory framework for stablecoins, digital assets pegged to the U.S. dollar and used mostly to facilitate crypto trading. It was almost destined for success, as a significant number of crypto-friendly Democrats, boosted by campaign contributions from the industry, were all set to sign on. But then reports about Trump’s family organization launching a stablecoin, and the United Arab Emirates using it in a $2 billion deal to purchase the digital currency exchange Binance started bubbling up. Suddenly, it seemed like terrible politics for Democrats to effectively rubber-stamp Trump’s crypto corruption.
Late on Wednesday, Democrats took a deal that will give them a standalone vote on the End Crypto Corruption Act, as an amendment to the GENIUS Act. When that fails—and it will fail, because Republicans in the majority are not going to vote to force a divestiture of their president’s crypto empire—they will proceed to a vote on the GENIUS Act.
This gives Democrats on the fence the ability to say that they tried everything they could to stop Trump corruption. But it’s completely untrue. Sen. Merkley, who I’m sure is sincere in his effort and who wasn’t part of this deal, released a statement on Wednesday saying, “This is the right moment to have anti-corruption provisions included in the GENIUS Act.” He’s right: If Democrats were serious about ending crypto corruption, they could have made those provisions a condition of their votes on the GENIUS Act. Instead they got a worthless amendment and gave away their leverage.
“Schumer 101,” said one source with knowledge of the process.
