A major housing reform bill that includes a strict prohibition on the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) has officially become law. The legislation, known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, enacted on Friday after President Donald Trump declined to sign it, utilizing a constitutional mechanism that allows bills to pass into law without presidential endorsement if left unsigned for 10 days while Congress is in session, The Block said in a news report.
The automatic enactment came despite an explicit morning announcement from the White House, where President Trump declared he would withhold his signature in protest over unrelated voting legislation. “I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” the President stated in a post on Truth Social, referring to a proposed bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. Despite the executive protest, the bill’s overwhelming bipartisan majorities last month—passing 85-5 in the Senate and 358-32 in the House—effectively shielded it from a standard veto challenge.
The primary objective of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is to improve nationwide housing affordability by incentivizing new construction and expanding diverse financing options. However, the inclusion of the CBDC ban represents a significant victory for the cryptocurrency industry and conservative lawmakers who have long fought against government-backed digital fiat. A CBDC operates as a digital form of fiat money issued and regulated directly by a country’s central bank, a concept that several global economies have pilot-tested in recent years.
While the Federal Reserve has previously explored the technical feasibility of a digital dollar—releasing a comprehensive pros-and-cons assessment in 2022—central bank officials have consistently maintained that they would not move forward without explicit legislative authorization from Congress. Despite these assurances, blocking the creation of a CBDC has remained a top policy priority for congressional Republicans, who argue that a digital dollar could compromise financial privacy and expand government surveillance over private transactions.
The push for a statutory ban intensified last year during negotiations over a stablecoin regulatory framework known as the GENIUS Act. Votes for that legislation collapsed after several Republicans, including former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, voted against the measure due to concerns that it did not go far enough to permanently outlaw central bank digital currencies. With the enactment of the new housing law, opponents of a digital dollar have successfully codified that prohibition into federal law.
