Sponsors (7)
The bill protects taxpayers and reduces expectations of government bailouts for digital-asset firms, but increases the likelihood that crypto customers, financial firms, and innovators will face larger losses, greater systemic risk, and legal uncertainty.
Taxpayers and the general public: the bill bars use of federal funds to bail out failing digital-asset firms, reducing direct fiscal exposure and the likelihood that taxpayers would cover crypto losses.
Depository institutions and the Federal Reserve: the bill clarifies that emergency lending authority remains focused on traditional depository institutions, helping preserve existing central bank backstop priorities.
Consumers and small businesses: by removing expectations of government rescues for digital-asset firms, the bill reduces moral hazard and discourages risk-taking predicated on anticipated federal bailouts.
The customers and counterparties of failing crypto firms: will likely bear greater losses because the bill eliminates a potential federal backstop for digital-asset firms.
Financial system stability and taxpayers broadly: excluding regulated firms from emergency support when digital-asset activities threaten larger institutions could increase contagion risk and systemic instability.
Banks and other regulated financial firms engaging with digital assets: may face legal uncertainty about when emergency support would be available, creating regulatory ambiguity and compliance risk.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Bars federal agencies, Fed emergency lending (Section 13(3)), and the Exchange Stabilization Fund from providing bailouts or emergency liquidity to crypto firms, DeFi protocols, and digital-asset intermediaries.
Prohibits federal bailout support and emergency liquidity for crypto firms, decentralized finance protocols, digital-asset intermediaries, and related financial-service activity. Federal agencies, the Federal Reserve’s Section 13(3) emergency lending facilities, and the Exchange Stabilization Fund may not be used to prevent failure or provide rescue assistance to those digital-asset actors. The bill defines covered terms (blockchain, decentralized finance trading protocol, digital asset intermediary, financial service provider, distributed ledger protocol, and related GENIUS Act terms) and preserves the Federal Reserve’s separate authority to lend to depository institutions under existing law.
Official title: Prohibit bailouts of digital asset market participants, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 19, 2026 by Richard Joseph Durbin · Last progress March 19, 2026