Wyoming Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who has been dubbed the “Crypto Queen” on Capitol Hill for championing cryptocurrency legislation, delivered a message to House leadership Thursday.
“Congress must deliver stablecoins and market structure by the end of the year,” Lummis told Cowboy State Daily.
Lummis’s comments come days after a report that House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise,both R-Louisiana, and other Republican leaders are considering multiple options for digital asset regulation.
One option under consideration that’s preferred by President Donald Trump is to pass the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act as the Senate approved it June 17.
Lummis was a co-sponsor and torchbearer for the GENUIS Act in the Senate.
Stablecoins are part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. They originally started off as an intermediary between cryptocurrency, like bitcoin, and traditional currency, like the U.S. dollar.
But they’ve grown into a separate asset class with the benefits of cryptocurrency (being outside the traditional financial system) and traditional assets (less volatility than cryptocurrency).
The bill “protects the U.S. dollar’s role as the world reserve currency by ensuring that dollar-backed stablecoins remain strong and reliable,” Lummis, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee’s subcommittee on digital assets, said before the Senate approved the bill.
Another option is to approve the House’s version of the GENIUS Act and send it for Senate concurrence.
House Financial Services Committee member Ann Wagner, R-Missouri, told Politico that she hopes there could be some agreement between the two bills, but the committee likes the House bill “a great deal.”
A third option involves combining the GENIUS Act with a broader cryptocurrency regulatory bill called the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act that’s already been approved by two House committees.
Option 3 Is Concerning
The third option is concerning, Wyoming Stable Token Commissioner David Pope told Cowboy State Daily.
“It’s a concern whenever you have that possibility that something that was relatively narrow and focused gets expanded,” Pope said. “The more it expands, the more possibility you have of meeting resistance toward some components that could derail the whole thing.”
Lummis’s deadline of Dec. 31 was likely created because of the elections and campaigning that will happen across Congress next year and the possibility that Democrats could win back the House or Senate and prevent Trump, “the most pro-crypto president in the country’s history,” from taking action from 2026-2028.
Wyoming will continue to be a leader in digital assets regardless of what happens in Washington, Pope said.
“The Wyoming Stable Token is going to happen regardless,” Pope said about the effort to become the first state in the nation with its own stable token cryptocurrency. “It is going to be very popular and it will generate income for the state that will be significant.”
Matthew Christian can be reached at matthew@cowboystatedaily.com.