Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, denied on Friday that the White House plans to withdraw support for the CLARITY Act and rejected reports the administration was “furious” with the company. He said “The White House has been super constructive here. They did ask us to see if we can go figure out a deal with the banks, which we’re currently working on,” stated.
Independent journalist Eleanor Terrett had reported a clash between Coinbase and the administration, saying the White House threatened to pull backing if negotiations did not resume, reported.
Coinbase withdrew support for the CLARITY Act on Wednesday, citing concerns the bill would harm decentralized finance, ban tokenized stock trading, and prohibit sharing stablecoin yield with customers. Armstrong added “We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill. Hopefully, we can all get to a better draft,” said.
The Senate Banking Committee postponed the planned markup of the CLARITY Act until lawmakers and industry reach more acceptable terms, and Armstrong expects a new markup within a “few” weeks. Critics argue the bill favors banking interests over crypto innovation (Ed. note: the ban on sharing stablecoin yield is a core industry worry), and some said it would protect banks at the expense of fintech, stated.
Text of the CLARITY Act is available for review, bill text.
