Coinbase Pulls Support for CLARITY Act After Senate Rewrite
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said late Tuesday that the company can no longer support the US Senate’s version of the crypto market structure bill after lawmakers introduced sweeping changes to the CLARITY Act.
He said the Senate Banking Committee’s draft “breaks key parts of market structure” and creates risks for tokenized equities, DeFi, stablecoins, and open crypto markets.
The CLARITY Act Just ChangedCoinbase withdrew its backing just hours before the Senate was due to move the bill toward committee markup.
After reviewing the Senate Banking draft text over the last 48hrs, Coinbase unfortunately can’t support the bill as written.
There are too many issues, including:
– A defacto ban on tokenized equities
– DeFi prohibitions, giving the government unlimited access to your financial…
At the same time, Capitol Hill sources are circulating unconfirmed reports that the markup scheduled for tomorrow could be pulled following Coinbase’s move.
The reports remain rumors, but they highlight the growing political risk around the bill.
Armstrong outlined four main concerns in his statement. The de facto ban on tokenized equities means that blockchain-based stocks and financial instruments cannot trade freely on crypto infrastructure.
The Coinbase CEO thinks the bill expands government access to DeFi transaction data by pushing decentralized protocols into Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering regimes.
Notably, the latest changes give the SEC broader control over crypto markets. This could potentially bring Gensler-era problems back to the industry.