Senate Works to Jumpstart Stablecoin Legislation
Republican and Democratic senators are reportedly working to resurrect stablecoin legislation.
As Bloomberg News reported Tuesday (May 13), this legislation, supported by the cryptocurrency industry, had lost momentum due to backlash against President Donald Trump’s involvement in digital asset ventures.
However, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) told Bloomberg that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle continue to work on the bill.
He expressed his hope that Democrats would agree to approve the legislation before the Senate takes its Memorial Day recess, and before lawmakers turn their attention to the Republican tax and spending bill.
“The window is now,” he said. “We will see if reasonableness will prevail.”
Bloomberg adds that Senator Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, the chief Democratic sponsor of the legislation, also said lawmakers have continued to work to advance the bill.
The report notes that progressive Democrats such as Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon have led an effort to block Trump and other officials from profiting from crypto ventures while in office.
This opposition prevented the bill from being considered last week. A pair of Republican senators also opposed the bill, but for different reasons.
Rand Paul (R-KY) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) had sought a provision to bar tech giants such as Amazon and Meta from issuing stablecoins.
If the U.S. does manage to create stablecoin regulations, it “could cement stablecoin legitimacy in 2025” and “bring clarity, enabling mainstream use cases and deeper financial integration,” Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a recent report.
Meanwhile, the market cap of stablecoins jumped from $20 billion in 2020 to $246 billion, the transfer volume of stablecoins came to $28 trillion in 2024, and 83% of stablecoins are pegged to the U.S. dollar, the analysts wrote.
“More than just financial tools, stablecoins are fast becoming strategic assets,” the report said.
This week also saw the news that the Citi Institute’s Future Finance think tank had projected that the stablecoin market could jump to at least $1.6 trillion by 2030, assuming regulatory support and institutional integration continue apace.
“We’re looking at the integration of stablecoins into what you call the mainstream economy,” Ronit Ghose, the global head of the think tank, said in an interview with CoinDesk.
“For example, stablecoins could be the cash leg for tokenized financial assets, or for payments by SMEs and large corporates. The dollar, and to a lesser extent the euro, has this kind of international currency status. Stablecoins allow people all over the world to hold dollars or euros in an easy, low-cost way.”
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