Fed's Digital Dollar on Ice Until 2030 as Housing Bill Slides CBDC Ban Through Congress 🏠

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have agreed on updated text for the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a sweeping package that combines housing affordability measures with a temporary ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a central bank digital currency. The deal, released Tuesday, merges priorities from both chambers and the White House and now heads to both floors for final passage, according to Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-SC), Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-AR), and Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA).

The bill's CBDC provision states the Fed "may not issue or create a central bank digital currency" or any substantially similar asset through December 31, 2030, and includes a carveout for open, permissionless private dollar assets such as stablecoins that preserve "the privacy protections of United States coins and physical currency." The language closely mirrors Republican Representative Tom Emmer's Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, introduced in June 2025 and passed by the House the following month but never taken up in the Senate. U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January 2025 barring federal agencies from work related to CBDCs, citing threats to "the stability of the financial system, individual privacy, and the sovereignty of the United States."

Beyond the digital currency clause, the legislation targets housing supply and costs, restricts institutional investors from buying existing single-family homes to rent out, and folds in nine community banking bills passed by the House. The Senate's updated text adds a three-year sunset to a disaster-recovery block grant program to secure bipartisan agreement. The Senate first passed the package 89-10 in March after attaching the CBDC ban, and the House cleared its amended version 396-13 in May. Scott said it was time to "deliver real relief for the American people," while Warren called it the biggest housing bill in more than 30 years, and Hill said he looks forward to "President Trump signing it into law."

The agreement clears the way for Congress to advance other measures before the August recess and the November midterm elections, including the CLARITY Act, a market-structure bill many lawmakers have pushed to move. House Republican leaders plan to put the housing bill up for a vote after the House returns from recess on June 23, two people familiar with the plan told Politico. Some House conservatives, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), have called for a permanent CBDC ban, arguing that "CBDCs are bad for everyone." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also recently reiterated that a digital dollar is off the table, underscoring the Trump administration's continued opposition to a U.S. CBDC through the end of the decade.