A group of pro-crypto Senate Democrats introduced an amendment to the GENIUS Act that is widely expected to fail—on purpose.
The move appears designed to look like opposition while actually helping the stablecoin bill pass. This largely ceremonial opposition will allow Democrats to save face on a potentially unpopular move.
What’s Happening with the GENIUS ACT?
The GENIUS Act, a major bill to regulate stablecoins, has stirred controversy. Critics worry it could enable corruption or destabilize the financial system. Despite those concerns, the bill retains modest bipartisan support and is advancing in the Senate.
Recently, according to multiple reports, Democrats introduced an amendment—the End Crypto Corruption Act—that allows the bill to proceed to a vote, even if the amendment fails.
This unusual strategy prevents Democrats from using a filibuster to block the GENIUS Act, clearing a key legislative hurdle.
In effect, this lets Democrats claim they tried to strengthen the bill without actually stopping it from passing. One source dubbed the move “Schumer 101.”
The reference is based on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s past use of similar procedural tactics to prevent a government shutdown.
“The [GENIUS Act] as it currently stands still has numerous issues that must be addressed. While we are eager to continue working with our colleagues to address these issues, we would be unable to vote for cloture should the current version of the bill come to the floor,” a joint statement from the amendment’s Democratic supporters read.
Why This Matters
The amendment is symbolic. It won’t pass, but it gives cover to pro-crypto Democrats who don’t want to publicly back the GENIUS Act outright.
Also, it neutralizes the filibuster threat. A filibuster is a procedural tactic used in the US Senate to delay or block a vote on a bill or nomination. By introducing this amendment via a cloture vote, Democrats can’t later use the filibuster to block the bill.
Most importantly, it ensures forward momentum. Even with some public opposition, the GENIUS Act can now reach a vote and likely pass.
Recently, Rep. Maxine Waters led a Democratic boycott of a crypto policy hearing.
The vote for the GENIUS Act’s final fate will take place sometime next week, and a few Democrats still vocally oppose it. Nothing is necessarily guaranteed; Republican defectors may get cold feet.
Still, currently, its chances look very good. Stablecoin regulation in the US may be on the verge of major success.
Bitcoin’s price recently hit a monthly high, surpassing $87,000 and marking a notable rise for the crypto king. This rally is attributed to favorable macroeconomic conditions and the increased conviction of key investors.
Despite this growth, long-term holders’ profits have dropped to a two-year low, signaling a more cautious outlook among certain market participants.
Bitcoin Whales Remain Bullish
Whale and shark addresses, which hold between 10 and 10,000 BTC, have been actively accumulating Bitcoin at lower price levels. Over the past month, these addresses have purchased approximately 53,652 BTC, worth nearly $4.7 billion. This buying spree indicates that large investors are taking advantage of Bitcoin’s recent dip, believing in the asset’s long-term potential.
The accumulation by these large investors highlights confidence in Bitcoin’s growth. While some market participants might have been uncertain during Bitcoin’s recent price fluctuations, these major holders appear to be positioning themselves for future gains.
Bitcoin Whale and Shark Holding. Source: Santiment
The MVRV Long/Short Difference indicator, which tracks the difference between short-term holders (STHs) and long-term holders (LTHs) in terms of realized profits, is currently at a two-year low. This indicates that STHs are dominating the market, which reflects the whale accumulation. However, the dominance of short-term holders in profits often signals that the market is ripe for selling, which could result in downward pressure on Bitcoin’s price.
With the MVRV indicator flipping below the zero line, there’s a risk that Bitcoin’s price could be negatively impacted if STHs decide to cash out. While whales continue to accumulate, the growing influence of STHs could lead to increased volatility, especially if the market sentiment shifts.
Bitcoin is currently trading at $87,463, holding above the crucial support level of $86,822. The last time Bitcoin failed to secure this support, the price fell significantly. However, if Bitcoin can maintain support at $86,822, it could move toward the next resistance level at $89,800.
Breaking through the $90,000 mark is a key milestone for Bitcoin. If Bitcoin can reclaim $90,000 as support, it will likely continue its upward trend. This psychological level is crucial for bolstering investor confidence, which would drive further price increases.
On the downside, if Bitcoin faces bearish momentum, it could struggle to hold support at $86,822. A drop through this level would likely lead to a further decline, with the next support level at $85,204. If this fails, Bitcoin could slide to $82,503, erasing a significant portion of the recent gains.
The US DOJ just published a new directive claiming it will stop investigating and criminally charging crypto exchanges, mixers, and offline wallets.
This has produced a mixed response from the crypto community. Some sectors are jubilant about the potential freedom for business, while others fear the growing problem of fraud and criminal money laundering.
Today, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a statement claiming it will no longer investigate crypto entities.
“The Justice Department will stop participating in regulation by prosecution in this space. Specifically, the Department will no longer target virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and offline wallets for the acts of their end users or unwitting violations of regulations,” the DOJ’s statement claimed.
The DOJ’s statement applies to cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, and crypto mixers like Tornado Cash. It builds on the Department’s previous announcement today, claiming that it disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.
The department gives itself room to prosecute individual bad actors, but only in specific circumstances.
However, the department is now moving on from crypto. According to today’s announcement, it will even drop any ongoing investigations against such entities immediately.
We will wait to see what happens with the Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet prosecutions. But the memo from the Deputy Attorney General yesterday is right on target: we should be going after bad guys. Not the developers of good tools that bad guys happen to use. pic.twitter.com/h8taM5BvGm
— Peter Van Valkenburgh (@valkenburgh) April 8, 2025
Also, it will not pursue legal liability for developers whose code is used by others to commit crimes, and it has closed all active investigations.
While it was expected that the department would lower its crypto enforcement under Trump, the complete laissez-faire decision has caught the crypto by surprise. Following the news, Tornado Cash (TORN) surged nearly 10% today.
The Department also asked regulators to review victim compensation laws. Although this is arguably a victory for crypto, it may also enable future finance crimes.
The DOJ is disabling its ability to target criminals on exchanges and mixers, with little guarantee that it can enforce the law. In other words, it may be removing critical guardrails to prevent future disasters.
“Crypto lobby: ‘Sure, Trump nixed the Crypto Enforcement Team, directed Major Fraud prosecutors to stop prosecuting crypto cases, and is trying to exempt crypto platforms from the Bank Secrecy Act, but they wrote right here that they care about stopping crypto crime! Reject the evidence of your eyes and ears!’” claimed crypto researcher Molly White.
Overall, it’ll be difficult to fully predict the implications of the department’s new policy on exchanges. For now, this directive will give many crypto-related businesses the freedom to conduct operations as they see fit.
Hopefully, business will proceed as usual without any serious controversies.
Lily Liu, President of the Solana Foundation, is looking beyond meme coins to establish Solana as the infrastructure for what she calls “internet capital markets.”
In an exclusive interview with BeInCrypto and a presentation at the 2025 Web3 Festival in Hong Kong, Liu outlined her vision for blockchain technology’s role in democratizing financial access.
From Meme Coins to the “Everything Chain”
“Solana has evolved from being the DeFi chain to the NFT chain, the gaming chain, the payment chain, and recently the meme coin chain,” Liu explained. “When you sum all that up, Solana is the everything chain.”
While meme coins drove Solana’s price to an impressive $290 high in January before falling 60% to around $120 today, Liu views them as just one transient asset class in a much broader ecosystem. “Meme coins are just one type of asset. There will be something else—there’s always going to be the tulip market and the beanie baby market. That’s been going on for a really long time. That’s just what humans do with or without blockchain,” Liu noted.
Despite price volatility, Solana’s Total Value Locked (TVL) reached an all-time high in April 2025, demonstrating continued investor confidence in the ecosystem beyond speculative assets.
The Crisis of Capital Access for Young Generations
Liu, who previously co-founded Earn.com (acquired by Coinbase in 2018) and served as CFO of Chinaco Healthcare Corporation, brings significant experience from building businesses in both the US and China to her current role at Solana. Her background in traditional finance gives weight to her critique of current capital markets.
“Fifty years ago, it took 25 hours of labor to buy one share of the S&P 500. Today, it takes 195 hours,” Liu noted in her presentation, highlighting how capital gains have become less accessible to average workers while losses are increasingly socialized through national debt.
This inaccessibility to capital markets has created anxiety among young people globally. Liu pointed to challenges in Korea and China, where housing prices have skyrocketed beyond what young professionals can afford without parental support.
“In Korea and China, the parents’ generation has retained the upside of a major asset class like housing. Young people’s ability to convert hours of labor into capital and freedom later in life has become extremely limited,” she observed. “In China, it creates huge anxiety for families where young men are culturally expected to own an apartment before marriage, yet average professional salaries make this impossible without parental help.”
Blockchain as Global Financial Infrastructure
Liu sees blockchain’s core purpose as creating a unified global financial infrastructure, similar to how the internet unified attention. “What crypto is doing is providing this unified infrastructure to unify the wealth, the transactions, the financial coffers of five and a half billion people,” she explained.
This infrastructure enables what Liu calls “internet capital markets,” making the full range of financial assets available to anyone with an internet connection. She contrasts the simplicity of downloading a crypto wallet against the complex paperwork of traditional banking and investment systems.
Lily Liu, President of Solana Foundation. Source: 2025 Web3 Festival Hong Kong.
For Liu, this infrastructure is particularly valuable in expanding access to equities and other assets that have both fundamental value and price discovery—currently reserved primarily for accredited investors even in developed markets.
Community-Based Capitalism and the Ownership Economy
Liu argues that blockchain offers an alternative to traditional economic systems. “In the last 100 years, we’ve come to accept that the dominant ownership models are either capitalist or communist—corporate ownership or state ownership,” she explained. “What Bitcoin proposed is that those aren’t the only choices.”
This has evolved into what Liu calls “community-based capitalism,” a term she uses to describe economic models where value accrues to network participants rather than just shareholders or the state. “Instead of universal basic income, which is essentially a welfare economy, crypto proposes universal basic opportunity,” she said. This model allows early participants in network building to share in the upside.
Liu contrasts this with traditional platforms like Uber, where early drivers who helped bootstrap the network received hourly pay but no equity upside. Her “ownership economy” concept refers to this more inclusive approach to capital formation where contribution and ownership are more closely aligned.
Solana’s governance reflects this philosophy, which was recently demonstrated in a controversial proposal to reduce inflation. Liu actively participated in this discussion, explaining that inflation reduction might seem efficient from a network security perspective but would potentially harm Solana as a yield-generating asset.
“Dynamic yield on an asset makes it a worse asset,” Liu emphasized. “If you have an asset yielding a fixed percentage annually, you price that very differently than an asset yielding at variable rates.”
Looking five years ahead, Liu envisions Solana enabling an ownership economy where blockchain creates new pathways for individuals to convert labor into capital, bringing “more inclusivity for five and a half billion people on the internet into capital markets.”
“The end state is moving into assets that have value, can also command price, and bring more inclusivity around the world,” Liu concluded. “This is where crypto is going.”
