Overview
- The Senate passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act by an 85-5 vote on Monday, June 22, 2026, with a provision that would bar the Federal Reserve from issuing a retail central bank digital currency until the end of 2030.
- The bill language forbids the Board of Governors or any Federal Reserve bank from issuing a dollar-denominated digital asset that is a direct Fed liability or anything substantially similar to one.
- The prohibition is narrowly drawn to exempt private dollar stablecoins that are open and permissionless, so tokens like USDC and Tether would remain legal under the statute.
- The measure now goes to the House and would require congressional approval and the President's signature to become law, though some conservatives are pushing to replace the four-year sunset with a permanent ban.
- The move codifies the current U.S. position that the Fed has no active retail CBDC project and shifts policy choices into law, likely preserving private stablecoin pathways in the near term while diverging from ECB and China CBDC efforts.