Ranking Democrat Maxine Waters of the House Financial Services Committee said Wednesday that she and Chairman Patrick McHenry are “on track to introduce a stablecoin bill in the near future.”

Hougan said in a note to clients on Monday that this had been overlooked, saying, “Congress looks likely to pass a truly comprehensive stablecoin law this year.” Waters noted that the agreement already has broad support.

However, there is still an unresolved sticking point regarding who should be the primary regulator for stablecoin issuers, Cody Carbone, Vice President of Policy at the Chamber of Digital Commerce, told The Block on Friday.

According to Hougan, bipartisan interest is driven by three factors.

First of all, as Federal Reserve Board Member Waller noted, stablecoins could be good for the US dollar and help it maintain its position as the world reserve currency. Second, stablecoin projects are significant buyers of US Treasuries, ranking as the 16th largest holder of government debt. The third is the opportunity offered in purely financial terms.

For example, Hougan noted that Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer, made $6.3 billion in profits last year with 125 employees, while Goldman Sachs earned $8.5 billion with 45,000 employees. “You can bet your most valuable stablecoin: Wall Street is lobbying to be allowed into the stablecoin game,” he said.

Bitwise CIO argued that, as the first comprehensive cryptocurrency bill passed by Congress, banks would allow institutions like JPMorgan to enter the space and move from “foe to friend” in some parts of the crypto ecosystem. “Millions of people and companies will be introduced to the speed, low cost and ease of use offered by crypto wallets, stablecoins and blockchain-based payment rails,” he added.

‘Regular payment with stablecoin in a few years’ Hougan suggested that we could be regularly paying in stablecoins within a few years, citing Stripe’s recently announced “pay in stablecoin” feature and Visa’s on-chain analytics platform showing increased stablecoin usage.

According to The Block’s data dashboard, the total stablecoin market is now worth $166.4 billion — up 23% year-to-date, but still down from a peak of around $181 billion in April 2022. Hougan argued that the market has another “step function” before and after stablecoins enter the mainstream.

Hougan said investors won’t explicitly benefit from any increase in the value of stablecoins, but they can invest from the “picks and shovels” associated with them, such as Layer 1 blockchains that host the large supply of stablecoins like Ethereum and Solana and various DeFi applications that interact with digital assets.