The US House of Representatives on Thursday voted overwhelming to pass the country’s first significant cryptocurrency regulation, the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. In June, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said he believes that the stablecoin economy could reasonably exceed $2 trillion—up from $195 billion today—off the back of the GENIUS Act. But critics see the GENIUS Act as a light-touch concession to an industry that spent hundreds of millions of dollars influencing the outcome of congressional races in 2024. The stablecoin issuers keep some of those dollars in cash and cash equivalents and invest the rest into yield-bearing assets like government bonds—and pocket the interest. But experts predict the passage of the GENIUS Act will lead to an explosion in the number of dollar-denominated stablecoins.