The bill, the first of its kind to put federal guardrails on digital currencies, sets up oversight of stablecoins. The roughly $240b stablecoin market is expected to surge in the coming years, with financial-industry titans such as Visa and Mastercard getting into the sector, attracted in part by the prospect of regulatory certainty created by the bill. Amazon and Walmart are among the big companies also exploring stablecoins.
“I think crypto is here to stay and I’d rather have it be American led,” Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), who supported the bill, said in an interview.