Senate Passes CBDC Ban to 2030, Franklin Launches Crypto Unit, EU Digital Euro Advances

Crypto News

The U.S. Senate voted 85-5 on Monday to advance a bipartisan housing affordability package that embeds a ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a central bank digital currency until 2030. The measure, folded into the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, bars the Fed from creating a CBDC or any “substantially similar” digital asset, while carving out an explicit exemption for stablecoins. After 2030, the central bank would still need direct congressional authorization to proceed. The bill now heads to the House, where leadership has signaled a swift vote before it reaches the president's desk for signature into law.

Franklin Templeton, the $1.7 trillion asset manager, has closed its acquisition of active crypto investment firm 250 Digital and launched a dedicated division, Franklin Crypto. The new unit folds 250 Digital's investment team and liquid altcoin strategies into Franklin's global distribution network, with the firm committing its own capital to the strategies. Industry veterans Christopher Perkins and Seth Ginns will co-lead the division, with Perkins serving as head and chief investment officer. Financial terms were not disclosed. The move deepens Franklin's digital-asset push; its tokenized real-world asset portfolio has expanded from roughly $768 million to more than $2.5 billion over the past year.

The European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee approved its position on the digital euro in a 43-14 vote, clearing the way for trilogue negotiations to finalize the legislation. Lawmakers framed the central bank digital currency as a matter of monetary sovereignty, citing reliance on dollar-pegged stablecoins and foreign payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard. The European Central Bank targets a 2029 launch for online and offline versions, with the offline mode allowing phone-to-phone transfers that preserve cash-like privacy. The draft imposes strict holding limits to protect commercial banks, pays no interest, and applies privacy-by-design features including zero-knowledge proofs that shield user data from the ECB.

Stablecoin issuer Agora has appointed Tanya Denisova, the former chief operating officer of Robinhood Crypto, as its head of operations. Denisova spent six years at Robinhood overseeing settlement, liquidity, trading, custody and wallet operations across regulated U.S. and EU entities. She will also serve as COO of Agora's proposed National Trust Bank, pending approval of its national trust charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Founded by Nick van Eck and Drake Evans, Agora issues the dollar-pegged AUSD, which processed more than $20 billion in transfer volume during the first quarter of 2026, a 355% jump year-over-year as the firm scales its product line.

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act faces a narrowing window in the U.S. Senate, with industry lobbyists flying allies into Washington this week in hopes of a July floor vote. At least four major issues remain unresolved, the thorniest being a provision to restrict senior government officials from maintaining business ties to the industry, a clause complicated by President Trump's own crypto interests. Additional sticking points include concerns from the Senate Agriculture Committee over commodities oversight, law-enforcement worries about legal protections for decentralized finance developers, and a lingering dispute over stablecoin yield pressed by U.S. bankers. Congress's summer recess looms before midterm season intensifies.

Consumer trading app Fomo raised $75 million in a Series B round led by Index Ventures at a $550 million valuation, with Union Square Ventures and Benchmark joining alongside angels including Mark Pincus and Kevin Hartz. Founded in 2025 by three former dYdX employees, the non-custodial app offers roughly 30-second onboarding, access to a wide range of tokens across multiple chains, and social features such as leaderboards and copy trading. Since launching in May 2025 it has surpassed 625,000 users and $4 billion in trading volume, adding around 3,500 users a day on a team of just 17. The round lifts total funding to roughly $94 million.

Taken together, Monday's developments map a single arc: institutions and governments are racing to define the rails of digital money even as risk appetite contracts. From Franklin Crypto's launch to Agora's senior hire and the digital euro's advance, capital and policy are consolidating around regulated infrastructure. COINOTAG's aggregate market data underscores the caution: the Fear & Greed Index sits at 23, deep in extreme fear, while Bitcoin dominance holds near 70.2% and total crypto market capitalization stands at roughly $1.77 trillion. With Bitcoin trading around $62K, well off its all-time high, the contrast between accelerating institutional adoption and defensive market positioning defines the current cycle.