Amid a flood of industry lobbying in Washington, DC, and Democrats’ capitulation, the Senate is set to pass the GENIUS Act, a sweeping cryptocurrency law that could spread fraud-ridden, destabilizing digital currencies across the banking system. But lawmakers and consumer protection experts warn that the bill has an even more serious problem: it would allow Elon Musk and other Big Tech tycoons to issue their own private currencies.

That means we could soon live in a world where all online transactions will require us to pay for goods in billionaires’ own made-up monopoly money, for which tech giants will be able to charge exorbitant transaction fees.

This scenario isn’t just a pipe dream. It’s a long-running project by tech platforms to control payment networks. In the past few weeks, Meta began laying the groundwork once again to launch its own cryptocurrency.