President Donald Trump called on House Republicans late Wednesday to move “LIGHTNING FAST” to send Senate-passed cryptocurrency legislation to his desk, dialing up pressure on GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber to adopt the measure without any changes.
Trump wrote on social media site Truth Social Wednesday evening that the House should pass a “clean” version of the Senate bill as soon as possible. His post comes as a warning shot to House Republicans — including Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) — who are weighing how much to change the Senate bill and whether to include it in a larger package of crypto legislation that would be sent back to the upper chamber.
“Get it to my desk, ASAP — NO DELAYS, NO ADD ONS,” Trump wrote.
The post comes one day after the Senate passed the crypto bill in question, which would create the first-ever U.S. regulatory framework for digital tokens known as stablecoins that are pegged to the value of the dollar.
House Republicans are on board with passing stablecoin legislation, but they may be reluctant to rubber-stamp the Senate’s bill, known as the GENIUS Act. GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber have introduced their own stablecoin legislation that is similar to the Senate-passed bill, but several key differences remain. The House measure cleared the Financial Services Committee in April.
“The Senate just passed an incredible Bill that is going to make America the UNDISPUTED Leader in Digital Assets — Nobody will do it better, it is pure GENIUS!” Trump wrote. “Digital Assets are the future, and our Nation is going to own it. We are talking about MASSIVE Investment, and Big Innovation.”
Hill, who has pushed for years to advance industry-friendly crypto legislation in the House, is also weighing the best way to get multiple digital assets bills across the finish line this year. He has been considering packaging stablecoin legislation with a second, larger measure — seen as the crown jewel of the GOP-led push to boost the crypto industry — that would divvy up oversight of digital assets between market regulators.
A spokesperson for Hill, Brooke Nethercott, said in a statement Wednesday that the Arkansas Republican looks “forward to continued collaboration with our members and House leadership as we work toward a path forward.”
Some House Republicans fear that simply passing the Senate stablecoin bill — even if it is reconciled with the House version — would take momentum away from the push to adopt so-called market structure legislation, which impacts a bigger swath of the crypto industry than the stablecoin measure.
In the Senate, though, Republicans are eager to quickly notch a legislative win by getting their stablecoin bill to Trump’s desk. The bill was the subject of months of turbulent negotiations, and senators fear that a cumbersome larger crypto package would be difficult to pass through the upper chamber, where Democratic votes are needed to clear a 60-vote threshold.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), the lead sponsor of the Senate stablecoin bill, said in an interview last week that his “goal is just to put a win in place for the American public and have it for the president to sign before the Fourth of July.”
“It’s very clear to me that we have an opportunity to have a great win here for the American public right now,” he said. “If the bill were to be modified [to include market structure legislation], it would have to come back to the Senate for a lot of work.”
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