GENIUS Act Would Legitimize Crypto Schemes and Abuses
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Senate Banking Housing and Urban Affairs Committee failed to reject the GENIUS Act despite opposition from Public Citizen and other investor protection organizations. Public Citizen told the committee in a letter sent earlier this week that without major amendments, the bill would add a sheen of government legitimacy to a financial instrument that can harm investors and would disrupt centuries of policy that separates banking from commerce.
“If the GENIUS Act becomes law, price manipulations, coin failures, and use of cryptocurrencies in illicit finance will increase,” said Bartlett Naylor, financial policy advocate for Public Citizen and author of the letter. “The committee should reject this ill-conceived, incomplete, and threatening legislation. The GENIUS Act invites major commercial firms such as Amazon, Walmart, Twitter/X, and/or Facebook/Meta to enter the banking sector because it lacks provisions under the Banking Holding Company Act that would prohibit non-financial firms from entering the banking business.”