Coinbase CEO Armstrong: The Crypto Industry Can No Longer Simply Wait for Congress to Act, Looking Forward to SEC and CFTC Regulation
The U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, leaving the bill temporarily stalled; Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated that while bipartisan negotiations may continue, the crypto industry can no longer simply wait for Congress to take action.
Armstrong pointed out that the SEC and CFTC already have the tools within their existing authority to establish clear rules for the crypto industry, and he expects these regulatory bodies to formally begin developing relevant regulatory standards—this assessment corroborates the earlier statement by Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad regarding the "shift to existing regulatory authority" path.
He also mentioned that the previously passed stablecoin regulatory bill, the GENIUS Act, has a relatively lenient design for its reward mechanism; in this context, he believes that some concessions made by the industry during the CLARITY Act negotiations "may no longer need to be insisted upon."
Armstrong emphasized that as the regulatory environment becomes clearer, crypto technology will continue to drive the evolution of the entire financial system.
From a market mechanism perspective, Armstrong's statement conveys two signals: first, the focus of industry lobbying resources has officially shifted from congressional legislation to the SEC and CFTC's administrative rule-making process, echoing Shirzad's earlier statement and further confirming that this path shift has become an established strategy for leading institutions like Coinbase; second, Armstrong's suggestion that "previous concessions may no longer need to be insisted upon" implies that the industry may adopt a tougher stance in the next round of negotiations with regulators or future Congress, seeking to reclaim the concessions made to pass the bill. This shift in position typically occurs after the original negotiation leverage (i.e., the urgency of passing a bill) disappears—once the pressure to "quickly secure a bill" is lifted, the industry may actually have greater bargaining power in subsequent regulatory negotiations. Who benefits: Leading exchanges like Coinbase, which already have mature compliance teams and communication channels with regulators, can continue to influence details during the administrative rule-making phase and take the opportunity to reclaim previous negotiation concessions; who is under pressure: small and medium-sized enterprises that have adjusted their compliance plans according to the concessions made during the CLARITY Act negotiations, as if leading companies take the lead in reclaiming concessions, the overall tone of regulatory negotiations in the industry may become tougher and more uncertain, potentially extending the actual timeline for regulatory clarity.
Source: Public Information
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Since co-founding Coinbase in 2012, Brian Armstrong has adhered to a strategy of "expanding while complying"—the company was one of the first crypto exchanges in the U.S. to complete compliance transformation and went public via direct listing on NASDAQ in 2021. Since then, it has actively shaped a favorable regulatory environment through lobbying, litigation (such as previously suing the SEC for clear regulatory rules), rather than passively waiting for rules to be established.
From a resource allocation perspective, Armstrong's statement aligns closely with Shirzad's previous position, reflecting that Coinbase is reallocating some resources originally dedicated to congressional lobbying towards communication channels with the SEC and CFTC for administrative rule-making; at the same time, his assertion that "previous concessions may no longer need to be insisted upon" indicates that the company no longer needs to continuously concede negotiation chips to maintain congressional support for a specific version of the bill, but can instead reinvest this political capital into negotiations for more favorable rule details.
Similar cases of "leading companies reclaiming previous concessions and betting on administrative rule paths due to the breakdown of original legislative negotiations" have historically occurred after multiple failures of net neutrality legislation, where telecom and internet companies also adjusted their strategies—amid ongoing congressional gridlock, industry giants often bypass legislative bodies and engage directly with administrative agencies like the FCC to seek more favorable rule details. The current stage of the crypto industry marks a critical turning point from "exchanging legislative certainty for industry concessions" to "focusing on existing regulatory authority as the main battleground, and reclaiming negotiation space."
This essentially represents a redistribution of negotiation chips following a shift in the "regulatory change" path: the failure of legislation eliminates the previous time pressure of "needing to pass a specific version of a bill quickly," which was one of the core reasons the industry was willing to concede; once this pressure disappears, the industry is naturally inclined to reclaim previous compromises made to secure the passage of the bill in negotiations with regulators or future Congress. Mechanically, the relatively lenient reward mechanism established by the GENIUS Act also provides the industry with a reference "baseline" precedent—Armstrong judges that there is no need for the industry to maintain stricter self-restraint clauses than the GENIUS Act in the related negotiations of the CLARITY Act.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Negotiation chips are only valuable while pressure remains
Once a bill fails, concessions also become void
Established precedents become the baseline for the next round of negotiations