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Lawmakers in the US have unveiled a raft of competing stablecoin bills, while promising to "work together" to ensure that one eventually arrives on President Trump’s desk.
This week, it was the turn of Representative Bryan Steil (R-WI) to place another contender for federal stablecoin legislation into an already crowded field.
Steil’s Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy Act of 2025, also known as the Stable Act, was introduced as a discussion draft.
The bill, which also names Representative French Hill (R-AR) as a supporter, was introduced to the House Financial Services Committee, of which Hill is also chair.
The Stable Act aims to provide a clear regulatory framework for the issuance of payment stablecoins and for stability and transparency in reserve assets.
The bill is far from original, however, deriving much of its content from an existing bill, the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act.
As covered by Vixio, the Clarity Act was passed by the House Financial Services Committee in 2023 with bipartisan support.
It was also heavily promoted by its lead sponsor, Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who was at the time chair of the committee.
Both Steil and Hill acknowledged that the Stable Act borrows from the Clarity Act, albeit with some key differences.
For example, whereas the Clarity Act would assign to the Federal Reserve the authority to approve and supervise non-bank stablecoin issuers, under the Stable Act, this authority would go to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
The Clarity Act would also provide a tailor-made framework for bankruptcies of stablecoin issuers, whereas the Stable Act does not address bankruptcy risk.
Finally, the Clarity Act would impose significant criminal penalties on persons who issue stablecoins without approval, whereas the Stable Act would not.
Under the Clarity Act, unauthorised stablecoin issuers could be fined up to $1m per offence and imprisoned for up to five years.
In contrast, the Stable Act threatens criminal penalties only for knowingly submitting false certification of stablecoin reserves and financial statements.
Under the Stable Act, issuing a stablecoin without approval could lead to civil penalties of up to $100,000 per day.
Clarity Act down but not out
Although Republicans on the committee appear to have moved on from McHenry’s Clarity Act, key Democrats on the committee remain wedded to the bill.
This week, Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), the highest Democrat on the committee, reintroduced an updated draft discussion of the Clarity Act to the committee.
Waters said that this version of the bill was agreed to by her and McHenry when he was still chair of the committee.
She also said the bill represents the “culmination of three years of work” on stablecoins by committee, which covers some of the period when Waters was committee chair (a post she left in January 2023).
“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,” Waters said this week.
“This draft bill fosters innovation, while properly addressing and prioritizing concerns I have long held about safeguarding our nation’s consumers from scams that have plagued the crypto industry.”
Expert witnesses favour Clarity Act
Both bills were debated this week at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and AI.
Timothy Massad, director of the Digital Assets Policy Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said the Stable Act is “substantially weaker” than the bill that was agreed to by McHenry and Waters.
He warned that although both bills allow for either state or federal supervision of stablecoin issuers, only under the Clarity Act would federal agencies be able to review and grant approval to state frameworks.
“There is no ongoing federal supervision of state issuers, and that's a prescription for a mess,” he said.
“We want people to have confidence that any stablecoin is truly stable and worth a dollar, regardless of what state it comes from.”
Similarly, while both bills would define stablecoin issuers as “financial institutions” under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), only the Stable Act would allow the Treasury to make "appropriate revisions” to the BSA to address financial crime risks that are specific to stablecoin issuers.
He pointed out that the BSA targets centralised intermediaries for supervision, but stablecoins can be freely traded from anywhere in the world without passing through those intermediaries.
Stablecoin regulation needs to address these risks, he said, ideally through territoriality provisions that would ensure that offshore stablecoins, such as Tether, must become regulated in order to access US users.
“When you think about the current market, the [Stable] Act is a bit like putting the lock on the barn door after the horses have left,” he said. “It's not clear to me it would even have much impact on Tether.”
Other stablecoin bills in the running
At the same time, other stablecoin bills and initiatives are also in the running to be the one that arrives on President Trump’s desk.
The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (Genius) Act, for example, is a bipartisan stablecoin bill that was introduced to the Senate last week.
It borrows heavily from both the Clarity Act and the Stable Act, but its main innovation is a proposal for mandating that larger stablecoin issuers come under federal rather than state regulation.
As covered by Vixio, the Genius Act would allow issuers of stablecoins with a market cap of less than $10bn to be supervised by state regulators.
However, as soon as the stablecoin exceeds $10bn in market cap, its issuer would be required to be supervised by federal regulators.
In addition to the bills that have already been introduced, there is Trump’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, a creation of an executive order that was issued last month.
As noted by Vixio, the working group has been tasked with reviewing all currently existing legislation that affects digital assets, including stablecoins, and proposing new legislation to plug gaps or to replace existing legislation.
Although it remains to be seen which of these bills and initiatives will win out, stablecoin legislation of some kind looks guaranteed to be enacted under President Trump.
