Senate Passes 85-5 Housing Bill, Bans CBDC Until 2030
1h ago|4 min readStandard
Fazen Markets Editorial Desk
Collective editorial team · methodology
cbdcus-senatehousing-supplymonetary-policy
Fazen Markets Editorial Desk
Collective editorial team · methodology
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The US Senate passed the Housing Supply and Affordability Act with an 85-5 vote on 23 June 2026. The legislation includes a provision that explicitly prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency, or any similar digital asset, until at least 31 December 2030. The bill now moves to the House of Representatives for consideration. The Block first reported the bill's passage and its embedded CBDC restriction.
Political resistance to a US CBDC has been a persistent feature of congressional hearings since 2022. The most direct precedent was the 2023 Digital Dollar Pilot Prevention Act, which sought a two-year moratorium but failed to advance out of committee. The current legislation represents the first successful integration of a CBDC ban into a must-pass, bipartisan spending bill.
The macro backdrop features moderating inflation at 2.8% year-over-year and a Federal Reserve holding its benchmark rate at 4.25%. This environment has shifted legislative focus toward targeted fiscal measures rather than broad monetary interventions. Political pressure to address a persistent national housing shortage, estimated at 3.8 million units, created the primary vehicle for the policy.
The catalyst was a strategic amendment from Senator Cynthia Lummis, a known crypto advocate and skeptic of Fed-issued digital currencies. Her amendment attached the CBDC prohibition to the core housing legislation. The 85-5 vote margin indicates the amendment garnered support from both parties, reflecting deep-seated bipartisan concerns over financial privacy, monetary policy overreach, and operational security risks associated with a digital dollar.
The 85-5 Senate vote represents a 94.4% approval rate, a rare supermajority for any financial legislation. The proposed ban would last for 1,643 days from the bill's potential enactment until the 2030 sunset. This exceeds the duration of the 2024-2028 presidential term and two full congressional sessions.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell previously stated that any US CBDC would require "clear support from the executive branch and from Congress, ideally in the form of a specific authorizing law." The Senate vote now actively denies that authorization. Public sentiment, as measured by a 2025 Pew Research poll, showed 47% of Americans opposed a digital dollar, with only 16% in support.
Comparison of Legislative CBDC Actions
| Initiative | Year | Status | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Dollar Pilot Prevention Act | 2023 | Died in Committee | 2-year proposed ban |
| Housing Supply & Affordability Act (Sec. 503) | 2026 | Passed Senate 85-5 | ~4.5-year proposed ban |
| Fed's "FedNow" Service | 2023 | Launched | N/A (payment rail, not CBDC) |
The direct cost of the housing provisions is estimated at $42 billion over ten years. The indirect cost of delaying CBDC development is harder to quantify but involves ceding ground in the global race for digital currency standards, where China's digital yuan already has over 300 million individual wallets.
The immediate effect is a regulatory reprieve for private sector digital asset issuers and payment networks. Stablecoin operators like Circle (potential ticker: CRCL) and payment firms such as PayPal (PYPL) and Block (SQ) face reduced near-term competition from a sovereign digital dollar. These firms could see a 3-7% valuation uplift on the news as their market moats are extended.
Treasury market infrastructure providers like MarketAxess (MKTX) and Tradeweb (TW) also benefit. A wholesale CBDC was seen as a potential disintermediator for settlement processes. Its delay preserves existing revenue streams for these platforms. Conversely, pure-play CBDC technology consultancies and software firms targeting central banks may see downward pressure on growth projections for the US market.
A significant risk is that the ban pushes innovation and standard-setting offshore. The European Central Bank plans to launch the digital euro pilot in 2027, and several Asian jurisdictions are advancing. The US could lose influence over the technical and governance frameworks that will shape global finance. This creates a long-term strategic liability despite the short-term win for privacy advocates.
Positioning data from CME futures shows a slight steepening of the yield curve, with the 2s10s spread widening 2 basis points post-announcement. This reflects a market view that the Fed's toolkit for future quantitative easing or direct stimulus is now slightly constrained, potentially keeping long-term rates marginally higher. Flow is moving out of long-dated tech and into financials and homebuilders like D.R. Horton (DHI) and Lennar (LEN), which are direct beneficiaries of the bill's housing provisions.
The House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Patrick McHenry, will mark up the bill in July 2026. McHenry has been a proponent of clear digital asset regulation but has not taken a definitive public stance on a CBDC ban. The House vote count is the primary catalyst, with passage requiring 218 votes.
Investors should monitor the 10-year Treasury yield around the 4.40% level. A break above could signal bond market concern over constrained future Fed flexibility. For the US Dollar Index (DXY), watch the 104.50 support zone; a sustained break below might indicate forex market perception of delayed digital currency innovation.
The Federal Reserve will issue its next quarterly report on digital currency research on 15 August 2026. The tone of that report will reveal if the Fed scales back its technical work or continues development in defiance of the legislative signal. The G7 working group on digital currencies meets in September 2026, where the US may have a weakened negotiating position.
The legislation specifically bans a Fed-issued digital currency, not private cryptocurrencies. It creates a clearer regulatory moat for decentralized digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum by removing the prospect of a direct, state-backed competitor in the US retail payments space for over four years. This could accelerate institutional adoption of existing crypto networks as the sole digital dollar alternatives. However, it also increases political scrutiny on stablecoins, which may face tougher legislation as the only remaining digital dollar proxies.
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