Some Democrats Endorse Bill Allowing Elon Musk to Create His Own Currency

[Passages]

The GENIUS Act is the first pro-crypto bill Republicans want to rush through this Congress. Thanks to industry money, several Democrats are ignoring the bill’s major problems.

by David Dayen March 10, 2025


The crypto industry spent lavishly to buy a friendly Congress in the 2024 elections, with their donations making up almost half of all corporate donations to PACs last year. They hope this week will begin the return on that investment—with assistance from Senate Democrats.

The Senate Banking Committee is expected this week to mark up the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, a Republican-led bill co-sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the new chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Gillibrand has worked for years to push industry-friendly crypto legislation through Congress, and she may have hit on a winning formula, with a critical mass of Democrats having received millions from crypto PACs and ready to collaborate with Republicans and the Trump White House.

But consumer protection advocates, other senators, and even crypto-leaning regulators have warned that the GENIUS Act would create a Wild West in stablecoins, provide weak standards, deprive users of financial security, and give Big Tech firms (like Elon Musk’s X) the ability to create a lightly monitored private currency.
https://prospect.org/power/2025-03-10-some-democrats-endorse-bill-allowing-elon-musk-create-own-currency/

Bi-partisan "winning". Meanwhile, all lawmakers should listen to the smartest guy in the room.


Joseph Stiglitz: 'We should shut down the cryptocurrencies'
CNBC
https://www.cnbc.com › 2019/05/02 › joseph-stiglitz-w...
May 6, 2019 — Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-Prize winning economist, says cryptocurrencies should be shut down. He worries that they enable illicit activity by making money ...