BREAKING: US Senate Pushes GENIUS Act Forward with 5 Crucial Votes—Crypto’s Next Big Win?

The US Senate just fired the starting pistol on the GENIUS Act—and crypto markets are already pricing in the hype. Five procedural votes cleared the path, signaling rare bipartisan momentum for blockchain innovation. Here’s why it matters.

Decoding the political playbook

D.C. insiders are calling this a ''stealth infrastructure bill'' for digital assets. No handouts, just regulatory guardrails that could finally lure institutional capital off the sidelines. The votes? A mix of cloture motions and amendments—standard fare, but the speed shocked even lobbyists.

The fine print that moves markets

Buried in the legalese: provisions for tokenized securities and a sandbox for DeFi protocols. Not exactly moon math, but enough to send trading volumes spiking on Coinbase and Binance. (Wall Street analysts, meanwhile, are still trying to explain NFTs to their compliance departments.)

This could be the regulatory clarity crypto’s been begging for—or just another D.C. pump-and-dump. Either way, grab your popcorn.

Senate five-vote procedure precedes law passage

According to Senate session records, the confirmed voting schedule included the confirmation of William Long to lead the Internal Revenue Service, followed by actions tied directly to the GENIUS Act. 

Specifically, senators will vote on whether to table Senator John Thune’s amendment, waive the Budget Act in relation to Senator Jeff Merkley’s budget point of order, adopt Senator Bill Hagerty’s substitute amendment, and invoke cloture on the final bill as amended.

According to Fox Business correspondent Eleanor Terrett, Thursday’s success will open the floor for a full Senate vote next week. “We’ll know on Thursday afternoon when leadership puts out the agenda for next week,” Terrett said on X.

🚨UPDATE: Okay, SO — a couple more procedural votes tomorrow on Democratic objections to the bill, adoption of the Hagerty amendment and then the last cloture vote on the whole bill, which sets up a final passage vote early next week.

We’ll know more tomorrow afternoon when… https://t.co/oda4FdX7gv

— Eleanor Terrett (@EleanorTerrett) June 12, 2025

Wednesday’s preliminary vote saw 68-30 support to MOVE forward with Hagerty’s substitute amendment, which introduced several changes to bring Senate Democrats to the table. 

Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee and the bill’s chief architect said the amendments were a “common-sense, bipartisan approach to regulating stablecoins.” He told Senators that the amended legislation has “enough oversight” to prevent digital financial systems from operating without regulatory clarity.

Democrats divided, Senator Warren leads opposition

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, is leading a group of liberals in opposing the GENIUS Act. On Wednesday, Warren lambasted the bill and called it “weak and dangerous.”

“This legislation is riddled with loopholes and contains weak safeguards for consumers, national security, and financial stability,” Warren said on the floor. She accused fellow Democrats of ceding too much ground to Republicans. “Over the past few months Democrats seem to have forgotten that we actually have some power. This is an opportunity to use that power.”

Warren specifically attacked the decision to move forward without guarantees of amendment votes, blaming the leadership for breaking promises. 

Still, eighteen Democrats broke with Warren and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to advance the substitute amendment. Left-wing votes in favor came from Senators Andy Kim and John Hickenlooper, who had previously voted against advancing the bill. 

If no amendment deal or unanimous time agreement emerges, the Senate could hold a final vote on the bill as early as Monday.

US Bancorp sets sights on stablecoin market position

Outside Capitol Hill, at the Morgan Stanley US Financials Conference on Wednesday, Bancorp CEO Gunjan Kedia revealed that her company is reevaluating its stablecoin ambitions in light of recent congressional developments.

Kedia said that interest in the bank’s institutional crypto custody business, which launched in 2021 but faltered during the Biden administration, has been revived under the current crypto-friendly regulatory environment.

“The product didn’t really take off because the regulatory regime at that point was very uncertain for large institutional investors,” she explained. “That product is back, and we are very able to provide it.”

Kedia described the “bigger conversation” now as being about payments involving stablecoins. She said the fifth largest bank in the US is “studying and watching,” and may create its own stablecoin with the infrastructure necessary to support such a product.

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