Written by: Bright, Foresight News
On July 16 at 7 AM Beijing time, according to Politico reporters, the procedural vote on cryptocurrency-related bills in the U.S. House failed. According to Fox News, the U.S. House plans to try again to vote on the procedural rules for cryptocurrency-related bills around 5 PM Eastern Time (5 AM Beijing time).
According to reports, President Trump was very 'angry' after being slapped in the face. After the House vote failed, Trump immediately posted a message stating that the GENIUS Act would pass tomorrow, and he had met with 11 opposing congressmen in the Oval Office today to discuss passing the 'GENIUS Act' and received unanimous agreement to support the rules the next morning.
However, the House did not have an additional cryptocurrency bill voting plan today, as stated by the House Democratic Whip. The voting ended with 196 votes in favor vs. 222 votes against, causing three cryptocurrency bills, including the stablecoin regulation, and the defense spending bill to fail to enter the formal deliberation stage. The cryptocurrency bills included are mainly:
GENIUS Act (Stablecoin Regulation)
CLARITY Act (Digital Asset Market Structure Regulation)
Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act
U.S. House Speaker Johnson could only awkwardly express hope that the House would try again on Wednesday for procedural voting on the cryptocurrency bill.
The Trump administration came on strong
Since the GENIUS Act passed the Senate on June 18, Trump immediately expressed hope to see this bill on his desk before the August congressional recess. Market news also unanimously believed that the House's vote on the GENIUS Act was just a 'formality', and its formal passage was a foregone conclusion.
Before the House conducted the 'procedural vote' on the GENIUS Act, Trump had already posted on social media to 'pop the champagne', stating: 'Happy Cryptocurrency Week. The House is about to vote on a significant bill, the (GENIUS Act), aimed at making the United States the undisputed leader in the digital asset space. Digital assets represent the future, and America is far ahead. Let's get the first vote done this afternoon (all Republicans should vote in favor). This is our moment. Everything is to make America great again, stronger and better than ever. We are leading the world and will work with the Senate and the House to push for more relevant legislation to be passed.'
Why was it so embarrassing? CBDC is actually the original sin.
However, the reason the House did not follow the script to complete a series of cryptocurrency bill voting plans may not be that the GENIUS stablecoin bill was the center of conflict. Before the meeting, the White House AI and cryptocurrency head, 'crypto czar' David Sacks, made a sudden statement that was indeed thought-provoking. He clearly stated that the Trump administration intends to prohibit the issuance of central bank digital currency (CBDC).
It can be seen that the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act may be the real battleground between the two parties.
The Republican and Democratic parties have long competed over the issue of CBDC, with the Biden administration very committed to promoting CBDC. In March 2022, Biden signed Executive Order 14067: (Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets), placing the design and deployment of CBDC research and development work as a top priority. In March 2023, Nellie Liang, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury for domestic financial affairs, announced in a speech at the Atlantic Council that the Treasury would convene an interagency working group to explore the development of CBDC, allowing the United States to 'quickly move forward when it is determined that CBDC is in the national interest.'
To enhance the status of CBDC, the Biden administration is willing to suppress cryptocurrency. In March of the same year, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released its annual report, with a whole chapter dedicated to discussing digital assets. The report presents CBDC and the FedNow payment system launched by the Federal Reserve as more promising avenues for enhancing currency and finance, and expresses the view of suppressing cryptocurrencies, arguing that cryptocurrencies are almost worthless except for speculative risks. This report subsequently became the ideological cornerstone of the Biden administration's ongoing pressure on the crypto industry.
The camp that strongly opposes CBDC is filled with mainstream Republicans, Silicon Valley libertarians, anti-establishment leftists, and cryptocurrency professionals, all of whom uniformly oppose CBDC citing concerns about privacy and government control. By the end of the Biden administration, the Democrats' vision for CBDC was essentially bankrupt. The (Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act) had already passed in the House in May 2024, while the Senate had not yet voted. The bill explicitly prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) directly or indirectly to the public through intermediaries, nor can it be used for open market operations or any monetary policy tools, and prohibits any form of CBDC testing.
As expected, on January 23, 2025, Trump, who took office as the new president, immediately signed an executive order banning any institution from issuing or using central bank digital currency (CBDC) within or outside the United States, while easing regulations on privately issued digital currencies. He also established a digital asset market working group led by the U.S. president, which later became the White House AI and Cryptocurrency Working Group chaired by David Sacks.
Thus, the Anti-CBDC Act is actually the pre-existing legitimacy for the Trump administration to promote the GENUIS and other cryptocurrency bills. The failure of these three substantial cryptocurrency bills essentially reflects the struggle between the mainstream CBDC establishment faction of the Democrats and the mainstream cryptocurrency faction of the Republicans.
However, from a social perspective, CBDC lacks a practical public opinion foundation in the United States. Previous polls showed that only about 16% of Americans expressed support for CBDC, while 78% said they were 'unlikely to use it', with more than half stating they were 'extremely unlikely to use it.'
In response, CICC published a research report pointing out that the (Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act) forms a logical closed loop with the (CLARITY Act) and (GENIUS Act) in the path of U.S. digital currency regulation. It reflects the strategic choice of the United States: to abandon government-led CBDC and instead support privately issued dollar stablecoins, with policy guidance and regulation implemented. Amid the global wave of central banks exploring CBDC, this move also highlights the differentiated path of traditional Republicans based on the idea of 'small government, big market.' In the long run, dollar stablecoins and CBDCs issued by various central banks will form a competitive relationship, and to some extent, this path difference represents another competition between the market and the government in the innovation arena.