Coinbase opposed crypto bill to protect consumers, says CEO

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee will no longer hold a planned markup of its crypto market structure bill after crypto exchange Coinbase publicly withdrew its support for the legislation on Wednesday

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said his company decided to oppose a major digital assets bill at the last minute after discovering provisions that raised serious concerns for consumer protection and market competition, speaking in an interview with CNBC on Thursday.

The high-level principle is that you can’t really have banks come in and try and kill their competition at the expense of the American consumer, he told CNBC.

Armstrong said Coinbase and other crypto firms had remained committed to negotiations until late in the process, but that a close review of the draft legislation first published near midnight on Monday revealed issues that the company believed would have been damaging if the bill had advanced out of committee.

He said the legislation, which ran hundreds of pages, contained elements that surprised industry participants and it would not have been prudent to move forward without further changes.

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee will no longer hold a planned markup of its crypto market structure bill today after crypto exchange Coinbase publicly withdrew its support for the legislation on Wednesday, compounding existing fractures in negotiations that had already left the measure on shaky ground.

The bill, which is intended to clarify how federal regulators oversee the U.S. crypto industry, was postponed late Wednesday with no new date set, according to a statement from Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott.

According to Armstrong, Coinbase ultimately concluded that allowing the bill to proceed in its existing form could have been “catastrophic” for average American consumers, prompting the company and others in the sector to come out in opposition.

He said the decision was intended to bring lawmakers back to the table and create space for revisions, rather than to halt progress altogether.

Armstrong said he expects another draft of the bill to emerge and hopes it could reach a markup within a few weeks. He described the setback as part of an ongoing negotiation process and emphasized that crypto legislation remains the industry’s top legislative priority.