CLARITY Act, the U.S. crypto markets structure bill, is presently under the legislative limelight as negotiations to finalize it are ongoing between Senate committees and industry players. Amid the ongoing work, rumours began making the rounds suggesting that the White House had become reluctant to proceed with the bill after Coinbase strongly opposed some parts of it last week. Responding to the speculations, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong presented a strong denial over the weekend.
Armstrong said the White House has been “super constructive” with the collaboration to shape up the market structure bill.
“They did ask us to see if we can go figure out a deal with the banks, which we’re currently working on. Actually, we’ve been cooking up some good ideas on how we can help the community banks specifically in this bill, since that’s what this is about…..the community banks, right?” the crypto mogul posted on X, responding to a “scoop” posted by Crypto America host Eleanor Terrett.
Terrett, in a post had claimed that the White House was considering withdrawing its support from CLARITY Act unless Coinbase does not come back to the discussion table with a “yield agreement that satisfies the banks and gets everyone to a deal”. Terrett had cited an anonymous source close to U.S. President Donald Trump sharing the scoop.
What Armstrong has insinuated is that Coinbase had n leeverft the discussion table in the first place.
The Crypto Market Structure Bill pitches the SEC and CFTC as the principal regulators of the U.S. crypto market, seeking to create long-overdue clarity in the sector by filling the current regulatory voids. It will clarify the classification of digital assets, define the extent of intermediary oversight, and establish strong consumer protection guidelines.
The bipartisan draft of the bill approved by both, the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee, was pushed back by Coinbase’s Armstrong last week. As per Armstrong, the bill proposed a defacto ban on tokenized equities, deepened government’s financial oversight, and killed rewards on stablecoins eliminating them as competition to banks.
Following Coinbase’s snub on the draft laws, the Senate Banking Committee postponed its markup session on the bill — wherein regulators would have gone through the bill and proposed revisions if necessary. For now, the next date for the Banking Committee;s markup on the CLARITY Act remains unannounced for now.
The Senate Agriculture Committee, however, is slated to hold this markup session on January 27.
While the Senate Agriculture Committee is in charge of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Senate Banking Committee, which makes rules for the SEC. This is why both of the committees are required to come up with a legal framework that would be compliant with the provisions of the CFTC and the SEC while also being in alignment with the industry requirements.
The crypto community, meanwhile, appears to be divided on CLARITY. Over the weekend, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse showed support for the CLARITY Act.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson snapped at Garlinghouse for supporting a compromise on the bill.
He said, “You still got people like Brad saying well it’s not perfect but we just got to get something. Sorry, Brad. Fight for integrity. I didn’t sign up to hand
the revolution to 15 banks. To live in a world where everything is a custodial wallet, every transaction is KYC. Everything is a is mutable and reversible. Can be frozen at a whim when that number comes stamped on my forehead. I signed up for freedom.”
For now, it remains unclear by when will the CLARITY Act be finalized.