Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is urging her colleagues to vote down updated stablecoin legislation, arguing it fails to sufficiently address concerns related to President Trump’s crypto ties and leaves financial markets and consumers vulnerable.
The GENIUS Act, which would create a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, is expected to head to the Senate floor again Monday, after Republicans and crypto-friendly Democrats reached an agreement on new bill text.
“Here we are again,” Warren plans to say on the floor Monday, according to prepared remarks. “So, what has changed with the bill? Not much. Its basic flaws remain unaddressed.”
Democrats initially blocked the Senate from moving forward with consideration of the GENIUS Act earlier this month amid a dispute with Republicans.
A group of crypto-friendly Democrats pulled their support for the bill, accusing Republicans of cutting off negotiations prematurely after Senate leadership sought to expedite a floor vote.
After two weeks of negotiations, the two sides appear to be back on the same page.
The crypto-friendly Democrats circulated a memo last week, touting “major victories,” including stronger anti-money laundering, national security and consumer protection provisions, as well as new restrictions on Big Tech firms issuing stablecoins.
However, Warren is slamming the updated bill, arguing it fails to rein in Trump’s ties to the crypto industry.
“The GENIUS Act will accelerate Trump’s corruption by supercharging the size of the stablecoin market and the reach and profitability of USD1,” she will say in Monday’s remarks, referring to the stablecoin launched by World Liberty Financial, Trump and his sons’ crypto venture.
The company’s stablecoin was recently used to complete a $2 billion transaction between Emirati firm MGX and crypto exchange Binance.
“And for the first time in American history, it also makes our president — Donald Trump — the regulator of his own financial product,” Warren continues. “This Congress should be a check on the President. Congress should not be making it even easier for him to line his pockets with even more shady crypto cash.”
The Massachusetts Democrat will also underscore that Trump is set to attend a dinner with the top investors in his meme coin later this week, which she argues has similarly enriched the president and his family.
Separately, Warren plans to voice concerns about the GENIUS Act’s impacts on financial markets, comparing Congress’s efforts to regulate the crypto industry to its earlier efforts to regulate the derivatives market. Derivatives ultimately played a central role in the 2008 financial crisis.
“This is not the first time Congress listened to the financial industry and created a weak regulatory regime for a new, innovative financial product. We’ve seen this story before, and we know how it ends,” she will say.
“Make no mistake,” Warren adds. “We are likely to see another financial crisis in the coming years. And we are virtually certain to see another set of wild swings in cryptocurrency values. And it will be the American people who will bear the costs of a massive financial crash facilitated by the stablecoin market if Congress passes this bill.”
She will also cite concerns about risks to consumers, terrorist financing and Big Tech’s ability to launch stablecoins despite the new restrictions touted by her colleagues.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she will say. “A bill that meaningfully strengthens oversight of the stablecoin market is worth enacting. A bill that turbocharges the stablecoin market, while facilitating the President’s corruption and undermining national security, financial stability, and consumer protection is worse than no bill at all.”
