Maxine Waters Unveils Bipartisan Stablecoin Bill Ahead of Digital Assets Subcommittee Hearing

California Representative Maxine Waters has called on lawmakers in the US House of Representatives to support a bill drafted in the previous session of Congress governing payment stablecoins.

California Representative Maxine Waters has called on lawmakers in the US House of Representatives to support a bill drafted in the previous session of Congress governing payment stablecoins.

In a Feb. 10 announcement, Rep. Waters suggested that a 2024 stablecoin bill drafted by then-House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry and her staff members would be preferable to other legislation proposed by lawmakers in the 119th session of Congress.

According to the California lawmaker, the bill represented “three years’ worth of work to craft bipartisan stablecoins legislation.” It included closing loopholes for issuers to circumvent US laws by operating abroad and barring certain convicted fraudsters from working at a senior level at stablecoin firms.

“At the start of this Congress, Chair Hill extended a hand of bipartisanship to work on stablecoins legislation,” said Rep. Waters. “I firmly believe that the legislation that I’ve unveiled today provides the best foundation for moving forward and getting urgently needed stablecoins legislation signed into law.”

Rep. Waters’ announcement came four days after House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill and Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Artificial Intelligence chair Bryan Steil — both Republicans — released their version of a payment stablecoin bill discussion draft. Rep. Hill’s notice suggested that Republican lawmakers in the House had not worked with Democrats to draft the legislation but were seeking bipartisan support.

Both draft bills came before the digital assets subcommittee was scheduled to meet for a hearing discussing “a path forward” for crypto legislation, including on stablecoins. Rep. Steil’s proposed stablecoin bill, titled Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, was included in the memo for the hearing — Rep. Waters’ and McHenry’s joint legislation was not.

According to Reps. Hill and Steil, the STABLE Act differs from a similar bill introduced in 2023, the Clarity for Payment Stablecoin Act, by giving the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency “the authority to approve and supervise federally qualified nonbank payment stablecoin issuers.” A Democratic staffer told Cointelegraph that Representative Waters was “not supportive” of the Republican-led bill.

In the other chamber, a group of Republican senators introduced legislation on Feb. 4 proposing certain stablecoin issuers fall under the Federal Reserve system’s regulatory framework. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, has been referred to the Senate Banking Committee.

Republican lawmakers have only a slim majority in the House to pass legislation related to cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, and stablecoins. US President Donald Trump suggested through a Jan. 23 executive order establishing a crypto working group that he intended digital assets to be one of his legislative priorities in 2025 — though many of his actions face legal challenges questioning their constitutionality.

Trump’s crypto and AI czar, David Sacks, said on Feb. 4 that the US president wanted to “bring that innovation [from the stablecoin market] onshore.” Issuers like Circle, behind the USDC stablecoin, are based in the US, while Tether — the issuer of the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, USDt — said in January it planned to relocate from the British Virgin Islands to El Salvador.