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With the Crypto Industry War Chest Looming, Senate Democrats Help GOP Pass GENIUS Act
Democrats "need to win the next election, which means we can not afford to alienate a very vocal and wealthy group of donors," wrote one lawyer who works with crypto clients.
Jun 18, 2025
Over the objections of critics who say a landmark cryptocurrency bill lacks adequate consumer and financial system protections, among other concerns, several Senate Democrats voted with Republicans on Tuesday to pass the legislation that would establish a regulatory framework for a type of crypto called stablecoin.
The Senate voted 68-30 to pass the bill, which is backed by the crypto industry, with two Republicans senators voting no. The bill's journey to Senate passage—which at one point seemed in doubt—comes after crypto groups spent tens of millions in support of candidates for federal office in the 2024 election cycle. The bill now heads to the House of Representatives.
Among the Democrats who voted for the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins, or GENIUS, Act are Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and the bill's co-sponsor Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), both of whom received support from pro-crypto entities last year.
The full list of Democrats who voted in favor of the bill is: Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.); Cory Booker (D-N.J.); Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.); John Fetterman (D-Penn.); Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.); Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.); Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.); Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.); John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.); Andy Kim (D-N.J.); Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.); Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.); Alex Padilla (D-Calif.); Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.); Adam Schiff (D-Calif.); Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.); Mark Warner (D-Va.); and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).
Acting CEO and president of the Crypto Council for Innovation, Ji Kim, called the Senate's passage of the bill a "historic step forward for the digital asset industry," in a prepared statement shared in advance of the vote, according to the outlet CoinDesk.
The Senate's passage of the bill came one day after the outlet The Lever reported that "a private group chat of Democratic Party operatives and crypto industry advocates has been secretly coordinating to push Democratic senators" to support the bill.
The Lever reviewed the contents of a Signal chat which contained messages from venture capitalists, lobbyists, lawyers for crypto firms, former staffers on Capitol Hill, and others. Participants in the chat expressed the need for the Democrats to pass the bill in order to avoid alienating the crypto industry.
Avichal Garg, a managing partner at a venture capital firm that focuses on digital asset technology like cryptocurrency, said in the chat that "if Dems bail on this [bill], they will get 0 dollars going forward," according to The Lever.
"It would be political suicide for them not to support it," he added.
Jason Gottlieb, a lawyer who works for the law firm Morrison Cohen and defends cryptocurrency companies, wrote in the chat that regardless of concerns about the shortcomings of the bill, Democrats "need to win the next election, which means we can not afford to alienate a very vocal and wealthy group of donors," The Lever reported.
Last year, the industry pumped more than $40 million into a successful effort to topple former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio in favor of his Republican challenger luxury car dealer Bernie Moreno.
No one has been a bigger critic of the GENIUS Act than Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the ranking member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, who has warned that in addition to weak protections for consumers and financial stability, the bill allows tech companies to issue their own private currencies and "take control over the money supply."
She also said that the GENIUS Act mirrors the passage of the 2000 passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA), which deregulated derivatives and helped the product proliferate in the lead-up to the financial crisis of 2008.
"It all sounds very similar. But there is one big difference between the GENIUS Act and the CFMA," said Warren on the Senate floor earlier in June, according to a copy of her remarks. "President [Bill] Clinton did not own a derivatives company. President [Donald] Trump does own a stablecoin company."
Warren told Rolling Stone ahead of key votes that the GENIUS ACT would "create a superhighway for Donald Trump's corruption."
Earlier this year, the Trump family's crypto company, World Liberty Financial, launched its own stablecoin called USD1.
In May, it was announced that USD1 would be used for a $2 billion deal between an investment firm established by the government of Abu Dhabi, MGX, and the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance.
The GENIUS Act bars executive branch officials and lawmakers from issuing stablecoins, but according to the Wall Street Journal, "it isn't clear how that would affect the Trump family's World Liberty Financial crypto firm because regulators would have to interpret the company's ownership structure."
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16 Senate Dems Join GOP to Advance Crypto Bill—A Gift to Trump's 'Reeking Corruption'
"No Democrats should be supporting Trump's self-enrichment," said one grassroots progressive group.
May 20, 2025
Despite concerns that it does not address U.S. President Donald Trump's ties to the crypto industry, 16 Democrats in the Senate voted with most Republicans on Monday to advance a bill that creates a regulatory framework for stablecoins, digital assets whose value is tied to traditional currency, such as the U.S. dollar, or a commodity like gold.
The industry-backed Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act passed a cloture vote, with support from Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the original co-sponsor of the bill, Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.). The bill is now teed up for Senate debate.
Back in February, a coalition of consumer groups and watchdogs warned that the bill would accelerate the "convergence of Big Tech and Big Finance" and is "a necessary prerequisite for future giveaways to the crypto industry."
In early May, the legislation faltered after several crypto-friendly Democrats raised concerns that it did not contain strong enough provisions around anti-money laundering, national security, and other issues.
Pro-crypto Democrats have said that the version of the bill that was considered on Monday contains a number of revisions that address those concerns, including more consumer protections and some limitations on Big Tech's ability to issue stablecoins.
However, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs—said on the Senate floor Monday that the bill's "basic flaws remain unaddressed," according to prepared remarks.
Warren is concerned, in particular, that the bill does not "rein in the president's crypto corruption."
"Trump and his family have already pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars from his crypto ventures and they stand to make hundreds of millions more from his stablecoin, USD1, if this bill passes," Warren said. "Passing this bill means that we can expect more anonymous buyers, big companies, and foreign governments to use the president's stablecoin as both a shadowy bank account shielded from government oversight and as a way to pay off the president personally."
USD1 is a stablecoin developed by the Trump family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial. A few weeks ago, it was announced that USD1 would be used for a $2 billion deal between an investment firm established by the government of Abu Dhabi, MGX, and the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance.
Warren on Monday also expressed concern that the bill, even with revisions, creates a relatively weak regulatory framework, and still allows Big Tech to create private currencies, among other objections.
"Democrats correctly deride Republicans for abetting Trump's endless, daily, sulfurous corruption. But given the chance to stand up to his crypto grift—perhaps the most reeking corruption in presidential history—too many Democrats instead yielded to another depravity, namely unprecedented political spending by a handful of crypto corporations and billionaires," said Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert on Monday, referencing election spending by the crypto industry.
In the last election cycle, crypto industry-supported super political action committees gave money to multiple senators who voted for cloture on Monday, including Slotkin and Gallego.
"No Democrats should be supporting Trump's self-enrichment," the grassroots progressive group Indivisible wrote on Tuesday on Bluesky.
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Senate Democrats Urge SEC Probe of Possible Trump Market Manipulation, Insider Trading
"Did President Trump tip off big donors or family to cash in on his tariff chaos?" asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Apr 11, 2025
Amid mounting concerns over possible stock market manipulation by President Donald Trump and members of his inner circle, Democrats in the U.S Senate on Friday joined their House colleagues in urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate potential insider trading and other violations related to the chaos caused by the administration's mercurial global trade war.
After slapping sweeping tariffs of 10% or more on almost every country in the world last week, Trump abruptly paused some of the levies for most nations. These moves prompted a stock market plunge, followed by a robust rally that saw over $5 trillion in value added to the market in just hours on Wednesday—a day the president proclaimed that "this is a great time to buy" stocks and openly boasted about enriching his billionaire buddies.
"In any administration this corrupt it is more than necessary to ask, were people personally profiting from insider information?"
According to a Bloomberg estimate, Wednesday's bounceback bonanza added $304 billion to the collective wealth of the world's top billionaires, with Elon Musk, the world's richest person and the de facto head of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, adding an estimated $36 billion, or about 10%, to his net worth.
"We urge the SEC to investigate whether the tariff announcements, which caused the market crash and subsequent partial recovery, enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public, and whether any insiders, including the president's family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the president's announcement," six Democratic senators—Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.)—wrote Friday in a letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins.
Did President Trump tip off big donors or family to cash in on his tariff chaos? Today with @schumer.senate.gov and Senate Democrats, I officially called for an SEC investigation to find out. Presidents are not kings.
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— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) April 11, 2025 at 6:08 AM
"It is unconscionable that as American families are concerned about their financial security during this economic crisis entirely manufactured by the president, insiders may have actively profited from the market volatility and potentially perpetrated financial fraud on the American public," the senators continued. "At this critical moment, the SEC must do its part to restore Americans' faith in the rule of law and to preserve the integrity of the financial system, in accordance with its statutory mission."
In a video posted on social media Wednesday, Schiff asked, "The question is, who knew what the president was going to do, and did people around the president trade stock knowing the incredible gyration the market was about to go through?"
"This is a president who is trading in his own meme coin even as he's president, his kids are trading in their own cryptocurrency, you've got people like Elon Musk who are doing their own conflicted self-dealing in the administration, and in any administration this corrupt it is more than necessary to ask, were people personally profiting from insider information while peoples' savings, their retirement accounts, are being torched," he added.
"The American people deserve to know if any representatives took advantage of their positions for personal gain."
The senators' letter follows a similar missive led by House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and sent to Atkins, SEC Inspector General Deborah Jeffrey, and U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro on Thursday requesting an "immediate" investigation into "possible insider trading and market manipulation violations that took place between Sunday, April 6, 2025, when U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent visited President Trump at his Florida resort, and Wednesday, April 9, 2025, when the president announced the pausing of the tariffs—and whether such unlawful activities are ongoing."
"Insider trading by federal officials and their friends or family is not only a breach of trust of the American people, but erodes the integrity of government institutions and raises concerns about corruption and fairness in the political system," the letter states. "There should be zero tolerance for this kind of corruption in our society, let alone from those we entrust to lead us in the public sphere."
In yet another letter sent on Thursday, six Democratic representatives—Joe Neguse (Colo), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Seth Magaziner (R.I.), Mike Levin (Calif.), Dave Min (Calif.), and Steven Horsford (Nev.)—asked House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to "call on every member of the House of Representatives to immediately file and release their periodic trading reports for any transactions conducted between April 2, 2025 and April 9, 2025."
"The American people deserve to know if any representatives took advantage of their positions for personal gain," the letter states.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said during an interview with Spectrum News NY1 that "I don't think that Trump just coincidentally said buy stocks and then shortly later made an announcement that dramatically inflated and dramatically raised a lot of these asset prices."
"I do not care if you're a Democrat, I do not care if you're a Republican: If you are trading individual stock when the market is being manipulated in this way, you need to answer for it," Ocasio-Cortez added.
On Wednesday, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) also called for a probe of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-Ga.) stock purchases during this week's market drop, and "whether any K Street lobbyists or other big firms were tipped off by Donald Trump's actions."
In an interview with Meidas Touch published Friday, Casar said that "it's just remarkable how much a culture of corruption has completely infected and taken over the entire Republican Party."
Casar: At the end of the day, this is about taking your hard-earned money and giving it to themselves—or funneling it to their friends. That’s all this is about.
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— Acyn ( @acyn.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 9:23 AM
"This is all part of the same story. They crash the market and then open it up to insider trading so that... members of Congress, K Street lobbyists, the billionaire donor buddies of Donald Trump can cash in after everybody's retirement accounts got screwed over," Casar continued.
"At the end of the day," he added, "this is all about basically taking your hard-earned money and giving it to themselves or funneling it to their buddies."
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