Late Wednesday night local time, the conservatives in the Republican Party no longer blocked cryptocurrency-related bills. They had already stalled for two days, and this concession allowed the House to proceed smoothly with voting on a series of bills supported by Trump.
In fact, on Tuesday, Trump pressured these hardliners, and only later did they relent. Trump has always been supportive of digital assets and referred to the upcoming vote as "Cryptocurrency Week."
Subsequently, the House voted to initiate the review process for the cryptocurrency bill, resulting in 217 votes in favor and 212 votes against. This includes the stablecoin bill that has already passed the Senate, and supporters in the industry believe it will make dollar-denominated digital tokens more widely used.
Before this, the House conservatives and the leadership of the committees drafting the bill, including the Financial Services Committee and the Agriculture Committee, had a closed-door argument. To reach an agreement, the voting window was opened for more than 9 hours, setting the record for the longest voting time in the House.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said that to get the opposition to agree to advance the stablecoin bill, the leadership assured them that later this year a bill prohibiting the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital currency (CBDC) would be included in the defense authorization bill.
Johnson also said, "This breaks the deadlock, and we can get to work. Sometimes the process takes longer than expected, but that's all part of the procedure."
Two anonymous witnesses who observed the private discussions said that Trump got involved at the last minute and listened to the briefing on the agreement. One of them stated, "He is quite satisfied with the outcome."
Johnson expects a vote on the stablecoin bill passed by the Senate on Thursday. The stablecoin bill, known as the (GENIUS Act), received bipartisan support in the Senate last month, and if the House also passes it, it will be sent to Trump for signing. This bill establishes regulatory rules for dollar-backed stablecoins, such as requiring companies to hold reserves equal to the dollar. If passed, it will be the first significant cryptocurrency bill approved by Congress, marking a major lobbying success for cryptocurrency companies.
However, the vote on the (CLARITY Act) may be postponed until next week. This bill aims to clarify whether assets are regulated as securities by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or as commodities by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
This procedural vote also allowed the House to quickly advance the spending cut plan that Trump requested and modified. While House Republicans were still arguing about cryptocurrency on Wednesday, senators were rushing to vote, hoping to pass the cut plan before the Friday deadline.