Sponsors (9)
The bill prioritizes privacy, congressional control, and preserving private banking roles by barring Fed retail CBDCs, but in doing so it forgoes potential efficiency, inclusion, innovation, and crisis-response benefits that a publicly issued digital currency might provide.
Taxpayers, middle-class families, and individual users: the bill prevents a Fed-operated retail CBDC, reducing risks of new federal surveillance of transactions and protecting privacy and civil liberties.
Banks, nonbank financial firms, and their customers: the bill preserves existing private-sector responsibility for retail accounts and payment services, maintaining current bank–customer relationships and business models.
Taxpayers and businesses: the bill preserves congressional control and provides legal/policy clarity that major currency design decisions (like CBDC issuance) require legislative authorization.
Consumers, taxpayers, and small businesses: the bill blocks a potential Fed retail CBDC that could have enabled faster, cheaper digital payments and lower settlement costs, preserving current frictions and fees.
Taxpayers and policymakers: the bill limits a policy tool (e.g., direct transfers or faster settlement) that could be used in crises or monetary operations, reducing flexibility and speed of certain government responses.
Consumers and fintech firms: the bill may slow financial innovation and competition in payments, helping incumbents keep fees and frictions and making it harder for new entrants to gain ground.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits the Federal Reserve and its banks from creating, testing, offering, or using any central bank digital currency (CBDC) or substantially similar digital asset for the public.
Introduced March 25, 2025 by Rafael Edward Cruz · Last progress March 25, 2025
Prohibits the Federal Reserve System and the 12 Reserve Banks from creating, testing, offering, or maintaining any central bank digital currency (CBDC) or any substantially similar digital asset for the public — either directly or through intermediaries. It also bars the Fed and the Federal Open Market Committee from using a CBDC to implement monetary policy and states the view that the Fed lacks authority to issue a CBDC unless Congress grants that power. The bill defines a CBDC as digital money denominated in U.S. dollars, a direct liability of the Federal Reserve, and widely available to the public, while explicitly excluding open, permissionless private digital currencies that preserve the privacy of coins and cash.