Trump Pushes House GOP to Revive Vote on Crypto Bills

President Donald Trump rallied House Republicans back into line Tuesday night after a procedural revolt earlier in the day nearly derailed major crypto bills.

The House voted 196-223 against a procedural rule on Tuesday, during what the administration has dubbed “Crypto Week,”  that would have allowed the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act, the market-defining CLARITY Act, and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act to advance to floor debate.

The late-evening turnaround came after Trump personally met with a few House Republicans who had blocked the bills’ advancement, securing their commitment to vote in favor of the procedural rule Wednesday morning. 

“I am in the Oval Office with 11 of the 12 Congressmen/women necessary to pass the GENIUS Act and, after a short discussion, they have all agreed to vote tomorrow morning in favor of the Rule,” Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly before 9 p.m. ET.

Many of the House members who voted against the bills had concerns that the GENIUS Act would leave open the possibility for a central bank digital currency, despite language in the bill that supposedly prohibits the Federal Reserve from creating one.

The Republican “no” votes included Reps. Ann Paulina Luna (Fla.), Scott Perry (Pa.), Chip Roy (Texas), Victoria Spartz (Ind.), Michael Cloud (Texas), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Andy Harris (Md.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Keith Self (Texas), and Andy Biggs (Ariz.). 

“I just voted NO on the Rule for the GENIUS Act because it does not include a ban on Central Bank Digital Currency and because Speaker Johnson did not allow us to submit amendments to the GENIUS Act,” Rep. Greene wrote on X. 

Stablecoins: a pathway to CBDCs?

Despite language in the GENIUS Act, Kadan Stadelmann, Chief Technology Officer at Komodo Platform, said it “does not include provisions explicitly preventing the Federal Reserve from creating a CBDC.” 

“There is also an opportunity for the Treasury Department to experiment with CBDCs, and the legislation does not prevent that, either,” he told Decrypt.

Trump had personally championed the legislation and urged Republicans to vote ‘yes’ earlier Tuesday, saying the bill would make America the “undisputed, number one leader in digital assets.”

Stadelmann criticized the GENIUS Act as “regulatory overreach, further entrenching fiat and banking interests.” 

He told Decrypt that stablecoin regulation “risks turning stablecoins into de facto CBDCs” and warned that “the U.S.’s move to regulate stablecoins risks state interference in a market that has been functioning fine without the government becoming overly involved.”

“Instead of focusing on regulating stablecoins, Trump should be laser-focused on a Bitcoin Treasury,” Stadelmann said, noting ‘Bitcoin is about reliance on independent systems rather than government-mandated ways of transacting.”

The legislation has faced continuous criticism from Democrats with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) saying that the pending crypto legislation “will open the floodgates to massive fraud and financial ruin for millions of American families.”

DeFi policy experts and industry leaders also criticized the CLARITY Act, telling Decrypt earlier that the bill could “decimate the novel DeFi sector in America” and would “continue the trend of forcing DeFi developers overseas.”