Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong pushed back on reports that the Trump administration is considering pulling its support for the crypto market structure bill, saying instead that the White House has been “super constructive.”
"They [White House] did ask us to see if we can go figure out a deal with the banks, which we're currently working on," Armstrong said in a social media post.
The rumors of the administration started to swirl after Eleanor Terrett, a journalist and co-host of the Crypto In America podcast, said in a X post that "The White House is considering pulling its support for the crypto market structure bill entirely if @coinbase does not come back to the table with a yield agreement that satisfies the banks and gets everyone to a deal, a source close to the Trump administration tells me."
In Armstrong's rebuttal, he said that the administration had asked Coinbase to explore a deal with banks as part of ongoing negotiations, with a focus on helping community banks specifically—a group often left out of larger digital asset conversations.
"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? More coming soon," he wrote.
The bank-versus-crypto debate began after Coinbase, one of the biggest crypto exchanges that has been deeply involved in negotiations over the crypto market structure bill and has spent millions lobbying for it, suddenly withdrew its support last week.
Coinbase's action sent the whole industry into chaos and sparked the "crypto versus banks" debate over whether banks are trying to kill the bill to keep their competition at bay. Following the firm's public announcement, the U.S. Senate canceled the hearing on the bill just over 12 hours before it was scheduled to kick off on Thursday.
Armstrong’s new remarks suggest that, at least from Coinbase’s perspective, the lawmakers aren't blocking progress—but may be trying to work with both the crypto and banking sectors.
Read more: Coinbase pulls support for major crypto bill. Here's what it means for the industry