Stablecoins stole the show at Bitcoin 2025 — here's what the major players said

CNBC

2 days ago

LAS VEGAS — At the world's largest bitcoin conference this week on the Vegas Strip, the most consequential story wasn't about bitcoin.
Stablecoins, the dollar-pegged digital tokens now driving a full-scale financial and political shift in Washington, stole the show.
The momentum behind stablecoin legislation and crypto market reform is accelerating — and it's attracting a new kind of donor, investor, and voter. That shift took center stage at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas.
Vice President JD Vance became the first sitting U.S. vice president to address the bitcoin community on Wednesday, delivering a full-throated endorsement of crypto.
"I think it's wrong, actually, to call this just a conference," Vance told a crowd of 35,000. "This is a movement. And I'm proud to stand with you."
"In this administration, we do not think that stablecoins threaten the integrity of the U.S. dollar. Quite the opposite," said Vance. "We view them as a force multiplier of our economic might."
Stablecoins are designed to have a stable value against a non-crypto asset, usually the U.S. dollar.
"We're streamlining payment rails for ensuring U.S. dollar global dominance for decades to come," Bo Hines, a White House official heading up the president's Digital Assets Council, told CNBC on the sidelines of Bitcoin 2025.
He added that stablecoin integration into the U.S. financial system could unlock trillions of dollars in global demand for American debt.
Those ambitions hinge on the passage of the GENIUS Act, a Senate bill that would establish the first comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoin issuers.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told the Bitcoin 2025 crowd that the bill would move to a cloture vote on Monday after weeks of negotiations with Democrats.
"We think we have a final deal," Lummis said. "If we can get this passed, this will be the first piece of digital asset legislation to pass the U.S. Senate."
On the House side, Republicans are racing to match that pace.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., praised Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., for pushing a "calcified" Senate to act at record speed and said the House is determined to get both the stablecoin and broader market structure bills on President Donald Trump's desk before the August recess.
"The president promised this," Emmer said. "We want it done now."
Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wisc., who chairs the House Subcommittee on Digital Assets, is leading efforts to advance companion legislation and expects the bill to reach the Financial Services Committee by July.
"Stablecoin issuers will be purchasing U.S. Treasuries at a period of time where that is incredibly essential," Steil told CNBC in Vegas. "It enshrines the U.S. dollar in our dominant role as the world's reserve currency."
Tether — the largest stablecoin issuer in the world — now ranks among the top buyers of U.S. Treasuries globally.
Steil dismissed Democratic efforts to propose an amendment banning government officials from profiting off stablecoin ventures. The Trump family has ties to World Liberty Financial and its newly-launched stablecoin USD1.
Kraken CEO Dave Ripley, who has been advising lawmakers behind the scenes, called the legislation essential to bringing financial institutions — including consumer brokers and major banks — into the digital asset ecosystem.
But he cautioned that key provisions, including whether yield on stablecoins can be shared with users and how government officials may participate in the market, are still being debated.
"Crypto is all about individuals," he said. "Let's bring the value to them."
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said commodity trading firms will be "the biggest driver" of stablecoin adoption in the next five years. He is already preparing for the next wave of competition as mainstream financial players begin launching their own digital dollars on the blockchain.
Ardoino, whose company controls more than 60% of the stablecoin market, emphasized that traditional financial firms entering the stablecoin space will be constrained by their reliance on high-fee customers.
"All the traditional financial firms will create stablecoins that will be offered to their existing customers," he told CNBC.
According to The Wall Street Journal, major banks including JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi are in early talks to issue a unified digital dollar to compete with Tether.
Tether, by contrast, is targeting the global majority excluded from banking.
"Many of our competitors say, 'Oh, Tether is serving this niche of the unbanked,'" he said. "Half of the population of the world should not be called a niche."
That global reach is one reason policymakers in Washington are moving fast.
Under Trump's newly appointed regulatory team, momentum has shifted decisively.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been long viewed as the industry's top adversary, has begun dismantling its enforcement-first framework, clearing the way for greater institutional participation in crypto.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said the change was long overdue.
"For many years now, I've been complaining about the fact that the commission has not taken proactive steps to provide clarity, and now finally, we're at a place where we can do that," she said.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, who has been meeting privately with the SEC, says tokenization — not just of dollars, but of public and private markets — is now within reach, even without new legislation.
"We've actually been engaging with the SEC crypto task force as well as the administration," he told CNBC. "And it's our belief, actually, that we don't even need congressional action to make tokenization real. The SEC can just do it."