Coinbase is under attack for allegedly killing the CLARITY Act amid a high possibility of the bill missing this week’s window for a Senate floor vote.
According to Arca CIO Jeff Dorman, the exchange and its founder, Brian Armstrong, were to blame for “killing” the bill.
Dorman said that were it not for Coinbase’s opposition and subsequent January markup flop, the bill would have had enough time to pass. Responding to the recent Coinbase push for the Senate to pass the bill, Dorman slammed,
The irony in this post considering we probably would have had already had CLARITY if Coinbase/Armstrong hadn’t killed it back in January 2026. Instead, it’s now political theatre with a less than 10% chance of happening in our opinion.
Worth noting that the CLARITY Act cleared the Senate markup hurdle in May after flopping in January.
According to most industry players and the White House, some issues raised by Coinbase at that time would have been resolved later.
Coinbase dismisses its ‘killing’ CLARITY Act claim
Even so, the exchange leadership has distanced itself from the claims that it killed the bill. Kara Calvert, Coinbase’s VP of U.S. Policy, clarified that the bill has now improved after its opposition.
We opposed the bill because it would’ve locked in problematic provisions that would have killed rewards, tokenization & hurt developers. Nobody wanted that, and the bill is vastly improved today.
Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase’s Chief Policy Officer, also reiterated Calvert’s stance. He noted that the version of the bill they opposed in January would directly “kill” the industry if it were passed as it was.
That would have been bad in and of itself, and it would have fractured the industry and effectively killed the bill. We now have a very good bill teed up for passage.
The Senate is expected to go on recess from the 6th of August and return on the 14th of September.
As such, the first week of August was viewed as the last window for the bill’s passage. Still, ethics provisions remain unresolved, with the bill’s passage odds slipping to 25%.
That said, Bernstein analysts expect a new round of selling pressure in the crypto market if the bill stalls.
However, the analysts noted that U.S. regulators, the CFTC and SEC, will accelerate rulemaking for the sector if the bill fails.
In fact, the SEC is already working on a tokenization framework. Still, such moves can be challenged in court if they lack Congressional legislation backing them.
Final Summary
- Coinbase has dismissed claims of “killing” the CLARITY Act
- Bernstein warned the CLARITY Act passage failure would trigger a sell-off but expected regulators to ramp up rulemaking efforts.