“There’s been a lot of good bipartisan compromise, hundreds of pages of input from both sides,” he said, adding that law enforcement groups, banks and crypto companies are behind it. He said the “must-have issues” Coinbase had previously raised “have now been resolved.”
One unresolved piece is the bill’s ethics provisions for elected officials holding digital assets. Asked whether the legislation adequately addresses conflicts of interest, Armstrong said “the details are still being worked out and negotiated.”
He said the White House has “already put out an offer on the table that has a very strong ethics provision,” while Democrats “have requested something a little bit beyond that, which would include divestiture.”
He added the two sides “appear to be very close to a solution.”
Armstrong responded to criticism from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who has accused Coinbase of using the bill’s stablecoin provisions for regulatory arbitrage against banks.
Without naming Dimon, Armstrong said critics with large payments businesses face a “competitive issue” and are “talking their own book.” He said Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon and Fidelity have backed the bill.
Armstrong also pointed to agentic finance as an emerging growth area, calling it “still early, but that’s the big TAM that’s on the horizon.”
