Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, released this statement following the Senate’s passage of the Republican-led stablecoin bill.

“There is nothing intelligent about the GENIUS Act. This legislation is riddled with loopholes and lacks essential protections or meaningful oversight which will open the door to future financial crises while allowing criminal kingpins, terrorists, and human traffickers to exploit crypto as a tool for facilitating crime. After Congress successfully blocked Facebook’s first attempt to issue their own stablecoin through robust oversight that I led, this bill reverses course and undermines the separation of banking and commerce by giving Big Tech and other corporate giants like Facebook, Amazon, Walmart, and X a pathway to issue their own stablecoins and expand their market power. Case in point, media outlets are now reporting that Amazon, Walmart, and Facebook are preparing to issue their own stablecoins. When companies that are notorious for not acting in the best interests of their consumers or employees decide to jump on the stablecoin bandwagon, we should all be worried.

The GENIUS Act would also legitimize Trump’s stablecoin grift and open the floodgates for him to enrich himself and his family even further. For example, Trump recently made a deal with an Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm, MGX, which announced their $2 billion investment in the crypto exchange, Binance, with plans to use the Trump firm’s stablecoin, USD1, to carry out this arrangement.

Since taking office, Trump’s net worth has already skyrocketed to $5.6 billion—$1.2 billion being from these very same crypto scams. Now, I urge my colleagues in the House to do the right thing and heed the concerns of the American public. Reject this pro-conflict, anti-consumer, all around horrible, no-good bill.”

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