Senate Passes Housing Bill With Fed CBDC Ban Through 2030 in 85-5 Vote

The US Senate passed sweeping bipartisan housing legislation Monday by a vote of 85-5, sending a package that includes a statutory ban on a Federal Reserve central bank digital currency through December 31, 2030 toward the president's desk.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (H.R. 6644), led by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), cleared the chamber Monday evening. The bill prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital dollar, directly or through intermediaries, for roughly four years. A House floor vote was expected as soon as Tuesday before the package heads to President Trump.

Fed Issuance Ban

The CBDC restriction sits alongside 44 other housing-supply provisions in H.R. 6644. Per the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the text bars the Fed from issuing any digital asset broadly equivalent to a central bank digital currency and closes an indirect-issuance path that critics said would allow a retail CBDC to flow through commercial banks or payment firms. The ban runs through December 31, 2030.

The provision includes a carve-out for dollar-denominated digital currencies that operate as open, permissionless networks with cash-like privacy protections, shielding existing private-sector stablecoins from the prohibition.

The housing package became the legislative vehicle after a standalone version of the ban stalled in the Senate. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) passed his Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act through the House in July 2025 by a narrow 219-210 margin, then attached a second version to the Foreign Intelligence Accountability Act in April. Neither cleared the Senate on its own. "CBDCs stand against everything we love in this country: privacy, freedom, and free market competition. We must never allow this weaponized surveillance tool to be adopted here," Emmer said in his April statement.

Chamber, Blockchain Association

Crypto advocacy groups praised the CBDC provision when it was embedded in the housing bill in March. The Digital Chamber expressed support on X for the CBDC prohibition language, with CEO Cody Carbone cited in the post. The Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger similarly backed the provision in a statement posted to X supporting the Senate's inclusion of CBDC prohibition language in the bill.

GENIUS Act Backdrop

The 85-5 vote advanced a provision The Defiant reported on June 17 when negotiators reached the bicameral deal embedding it in the housing package.

The GENIUS Act (S. 394), which created a federal licensing framework for payment stablecoins, was signed into law by President Trump in July 2025. Congress has now drawn two parallel lines: private-sector digital dollars operate under federal oversight; a government-issued alternative is off-limits through 2030.

EU Contrast

The US Senate vote arrived as the European Central Bank's digital euro project moved in the opposite direction. The European Parliament voted earlier this year to advance the digital euro framework, with EU lawmakers considering enabling legislation. The US statutory ban and EU legislative advance put the two jurisdictions on opposite regulatory trajectories on government-issued digital currency.

The House is expected to vote on H.R. 6644 this week. If passed, the bill goes to President Trump for signature.