The US Senate voted 85-5 on June 22 to pass the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that pairs major housing reforms with a flat ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a central bank digital currency until the end of 2030.

What’s actually in the bill

The legislation, formally designated H.R. 6644, prohibits the Fed from issuing or creating a CBDC, or any similar digital asset, until December 31, 2030. That’s a hard four-year moratorium baked into federal law, not just an executive preference or a regulatory guidance letter that can be quietly revised.

The bill was spearheaded by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

On the housing side, the act aims to improve affordability by easing regulations on homebuilding and restricting large institutional investors from scooping up single-family homes. It has been described as the largest housing bill in over 30 years.

The CBDC prohibition is technically a rider, a provision attached to a larger bill covering a different primary topic.

Why ban something that doesn’t exist yet

The Federal Reserve does not currently have an active CBDC project. There is no digital dollar prototype being tested, no pilot program running, no timeline for launch. The Fed has published exploratory research over the years, but as of June 2026, there is nothing concrete to kill.

Republican lawmakers have been vocal about the surveillance risks they see embedded in any government-issued digital currency. A CBDC, by design, could give the issuing authority granular visibility into how every dollar is spent.

President Trump set the tone early. In January 2025, he signed an executive order explicitly opposing a Fed CBDC on grounds of financial privacy and monetary stability. The Senate bill effectively codifies that executive preference into something far harder to undo. Executive orders can be reversed by the next president with a pen stroke. Legislation requires another act of Congress.

The House is expected to approve the bill quickly before it reaches Trump’s desk for a signature.

What this means for crypto and stablecoins

A four-year federal ban on a digital dollar reshapes the competitive landscape for private digital currencies, particularly stablecoins. If that option is now off the table until at least 2031, the market for dollar-denominated digital transactions defaults to private stablecoins like USDC and USDT.

Congress has been working on separate stablecoin legislation as well, and a CBDC ban removes one of the biggest competitive threats that private issuers might have eventually faced.

The moratorium has an expiration date of December 31, 2030. Whether Congress extends it, lets it lapse, or replaces it with something else will depend on the political and technological landscape four years from now. The bill bans the Fed from issuing a CBDC, but it does not prohibit research, discussion, or future legislative reconsideration after 2030.