Chiefs Push Back Crypto Market Bill as Coinbase Flexes Its Muscle in Washington
On Wednesday evening, the Senate Banking Committee delayed final discussions on a bill to create greater transparency for crypto regulation in the United States, aptly known as the Clarification Act. The decision came as Coinbase CEO and deep political donor Brian Armstrong went public with his complaints about the bill.
The Senate Agriculture Committee has also postponed debate on its version of the bill until January 27. Both committees were originally scheduled to mark up their versions of the bill on Thursday.
Once completed, both versions will be combined and voted on by the entire Senate. The House already passed its version of the Clarity Act last year, so the bill will go straight to President Trump’s desk for his final signature once it passes the Senate.
Notably, the Senate Banking Committee’s decision to postpone discussions on the crypto market structure bill came after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong shared his disapproval of the Senate Banking Committee’s draft version of the X bill. “We appreciate all the hard work of the members of the Senate to achieve a bi-partisan result, but this version will be worse than the current strong position of Arm,” said Arm. “We’d rather have a bill than have bad credit. Hopefully we can all come to a better settlement.”
Armstrong later added that he hopes a better bill can be written, and Coinbase will continue to work with everyone to make that happen. According to a report from Wall Street firm Benchmark, Armstrong’s move may be more of a bargaining ploy than anything else.
After reviewing the Senate Banking draft text 48 hours ago, Coinbase unfortunately cannot support the bill as written.
There are many problems, including:
– Defacto ban on equity tokens
– DeFi restrictions, which give the government unlimited access to your finances…– Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) January 14, 2026
Coinbase and other members of the crypto industry are seeking legal clarification from the federal government regarding crypto, as they feel it has not been provided by the Biden administration. Former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler is generally considered a rogue among many crypto supporters, as the SEC’s policy under his rule was successful that all crypto assets except bitcoin served as unregistered securities. That said, there was a sharp reversal of this trend towards the end of Biden’s tenure, as Ethereum exchanges were approved.
The main areas of interest in the new bill for the crypto industry include the tokenization of shares and other traditional assets, clear guidelines on when a crypto asset is considered a security, and the protection of developers who do not protect their users’ assets. Although stablecoins received more clarity in the GENIUS Act last year, traditional banks now want to see changes in those guidelines so as not to put themselves at a competitive disadvantage with the emerging crypto sector.
Indeed, members of Congress are effectively dealing with competing lobbyists from both the crypto and traditional banking sectors and are trying to find a way to make everyone happy, according to CoinDesk. According to Open Secrets, the crypto lobby threw away 133 million dollars in the 2024 election cycle in an effort to get better policies from Washington, and now it’s time for the industry to get a return on that investment.
I’ve talked to leaders across the crypto industry, the financial sector, and my Democratic and Republican colleagues, and everyone sits at the table and works in good faith.
As we take a moment before moving on to caps, this market structure bill shows the months of…
– Senator Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) January 15, 2026
Developer protection is an area of interest for crypto users, especially those who are philosophically aligned with the original ethics of decentralization and permissionless finance that underpinned the original creation of Bitcoin. The developers of the privacy-focused bitcoin wallet Samourai Wallet recently received four- or five-year prison sentences for creating software that allows users to mix their bitcoin with others in an attempt to hide the origin of the funds.
Although the former CEO of the crypto exchange Binance received amnesty from President Trump for a sentence related to his involvement in liberal anti-money laundering standards in his exchange, the developers of Samurai Wallet have not received the same treatment from the president. Notably, the Binance CEO pardon has been described as unprecedented corruption by a former DOJ official due to Binance’s holding of a Trump-affiliated stablecoin, known as USD1, effectively generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue for the stablecoin issuer. The lack of pardon for the developers of Samurai Wallet so far creates an unfavorable situation for the president due to the optics in the context of the pardon of the former CEO of the crypto exchange. That said, President Trump previously said he would look into a possible pardon for the developers of the Samurai Wallet.
The potential lack of protection for wallet developers who don’t end up being kept in the crypto regulation bill has been a concern for some months now. And the possible lack of such protection, in addition to the lack of de minimis tax exemption for paying bitcoins, will provide more support for the argument that the election of Trump has empowered the big crypto institutions (and him) rather than individual users involved in the so-called financial democratization.
In the meantime, the nonprofit crypto advocacy group Coin Center said, “While several issues remain . . . we are very encouraged by the significant progress made by Senate Banking.”
