Durbin Votes Against The GENIUS Act

WASHINGTON–U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) released the following statement after the Senate passed theGENIUS Act, a bill meant to establish a regulatory regime for stablecoins.
Durbin had pushed for an amendment to this legislation that would have helped prevent scammers from stealing Americans’ savings through cryptocurrency ATMs. Durbin’s amendment, based off hisCrypto ATM Fraud Prevention Act, aimed to crack down on scams by adding layers of protections to crypto ATM transactions and required greater transparency from cryptocurrency ATM operators. And yesterday in aspeech on the Senate floor, Durbin highlighted President Donald Trump’s shady use of cryptocurrency for his own benefit. Conveniently, theGENIUS Actallows the President and his family to continue owning, issuing, and profiting off of stablecoins.
“Senate passage of theGENIUS Actbrings us closer to enabling President Trump’s latest crypto scam. This is shameful, especially since we could have stopped this from happening if we had conducted an open amendment process like Leader Thune promised. I filed an amendment to crack down on crypto ATM operators who have been scamming seniors out of their life savings. My amendment would have created guardrails to prevent crypto ATM fraud. Instead, theGENIUS Actwill allow these scams to continue at the expense of unsuspecting Americans and to the enrichment of the President and his family.”
Durbin’sCrypto ATM Fraud Prevention Actbuilds upon his efforts to crack down on crypto ATM scams. In September 2024, Durbin led a group of Senate Democrats inpressingthe ten largest crypto ATM operators to curb fraud against elderly Americans. The Senators wanted to understand what steps—if any—these companies were taking to prevent fraudulent use of their machines.
-30-