Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has weighed in on the future of a cryptocurrency market structure bill under consideration in the US Senate less than 24 hours after he said the exchange could not support the current version of the legislation.
In a Thursday CNBC interview in the US Capitol building, Armstrong spoke after posting on X Wednesday that Coinbase was pulling its support for the CLARITY Act, a bill to establish digital asset market structure. Members of the US Senate Banking Committee had been scheduled for a markup of the bill on Thursday, which was postponed following Armstrong’s post.
“We developed this concern that if [the bill] went into a markup, the only way to edit some of that base text would have been through an amendment, and amendments had already been submitted,” said the Coinbase CEO. “And so we didn’t think it was prudent to come out of committee with a bunch of these issues in the bill which would have been catastrophic for the average American consumer.”
Armstrong added:
“I think we’ve got a chance to do a new draft, and hopefully get into a markup in a few weeks.”
Republican lawmakers in control of the US House of Representatives and Senate initially expected the CLARITY Act to be signed into law by 2026.
However, many industry leaders, banks and experts have expressed concerns about provisions of the bill dealing with decentralized finance, interest on payment stablecoins and how the legislation would delegate regulation between the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
“Inaction is unacceptable,” Cody Carbone, CEO of crypto advocacy organization The Digital Chamber, told Cointelegraph on advancement of the CLARITY Act. “We cannot afford to walk away from the table at a moment when clarity is within reach. Market structure must move forward, and the only path to longstanding policy is getting back to the negotiating table and finishing the job.”
Related: Crypto industry split over CLARITY Act after Coinbase breaks ranks
Senator Tim Scott, who chairs the Banking Committee, said on Wednesday that the markup postponement was a “brief pause” and there were “good faith” bipartisan discussions continuing to happen. Members of the Senate are scheduled for a state work period next week, likely pushing any potential markup to at least the end of January.
Will postponement affect the other committee?
The Senate Agriculture Committee, the other body handling a version of the market structure bill, announced earlier this week that it would release draft legislation on Jan. 21, with a markup hearing scheduled for Jan. 27. As of the time of publication, committee Chair John Boozman had not announced any changes to this timeline.
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