Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) has recently taken a fierce stance against the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. The new bill establishes regulatory frameworks for digital currency, but Rep. Greene has criticized it for failing to tackle central banking digital currency (CBDC).
The GENIUS Act, also known as S 394, establishes a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins. For context, payment stablecoins are digital assets that an issuer must redeem for a fixed monetary value.
Under S 394, only permitted issuers can issue a payment stablecoin in the United States. Alongside this, permitted issuers must be a subsidiary of a federal-qualified nonbank payment stablecoin issuer or a state-qualified payment stablecoin issuer.
Permitted issuers then must be regulated by the appropriate federal or state regulator. They can choose federal or state regulation; however, state regulation is limited to those with a stablecoin issuance of $10 billion or less.
Rep. Greene issued a series of statements on the bill explaining her problems with it. She initially claimed that the bill establishes the functional surveillance capabilities of CBDC.
Rep. Greene also claimed that the bill fails to follow an executive order signed by President Trump back in January. The executive order bans agencies from establishing a CBDC in the U.S. and maintains that people will maintain custody of their digital assets.
In a follow-up statement, Rep. Greene announced, “I just voted NO on the Rule for the GENIUS Act because it does not include a ban on Central Bank Digital Currency and because Speaker Johnson did not allow us to submit amendments to the GENIUS Act.”
Rep. Greene went on to assert that it was the duty of Republicans to push back against CBDC. In her final statement, she went so far as to compare CBDC to the mark of the beast from the book of Revelation in the Bible. She specifically cited chapter thirteen, verses sixteen and seventeen.
The religious dimension of Greene’s opposition seems to be an afterthought, however. It was not brought up until after she had laid out more clear reasons for opposing the bill.
