Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the exchange cannot support a new Senate cryptocurrency bill in its current form, introducing uncertainty into Washington’s latest attempt to establish ground rules for digital assets.
Senators introduced the plan earlier this week to clarify when tokens are considered securities or commodities, and to hand oversight of cryptocurrency spot markets to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a long-standing priority for much of the industry.
Armstrong issued his opposition on Wednesday after reviewing the bill, writing: “After review of the bill by the Senate Banking Committee over the past 48 hours, Coinbase unfortunately cannot support the bill in its current form. »
After reviewing the Senate Banking Bill over the past 48 hours, Coinbase unfortunately cannot support the bill as written.
There are too many problems, including:
– A de facto ban on tokenized actions
– DeFi bans, giving the government unlimited access to your finances…–Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) January 14, 2026
Armstrong warns of risks of tokenization, decentralized finance and privacy
He said the plan had numerous problems, including what he described as a de facto ban on tokenized stocks, restrictions affecting decentralized finance and privacy, and changes that would weaken the CFTC in ways that put innovation at the mercy of the SEC.
Armstrong also criticized provisions that would limit rewards tied to stablecoins, a point of contention in a growing lobbying battle between banks and cryptocurrency companies over whether yield payments resemble deposit products.
We appreciate Senators’ diligent efforts to achieve a bipartisan outcome, but this version would be far worse than the status quo. We would rather have no bill than a bad bill. I hope we can all come up with a better draft.
The bill does not allow cryptocurrency companies to pay interest to consumers simply for owning a stablecoin, although it still allows offering rewards for certain activities such as payments or joining loyalty programs, with disclosure rules set by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC.
Cryptocurrency Industry Watches Closely as Bill Enters Decisive Phase
Coinbase’s position is important because the company has played a central role in negotiations over market structure and spends a lot of money on pro-crypto political campaigns. The Senate Banking Committee was scheduled to begin discussing the bill on Thursday at 10 a.m. EST, but the session was later postponed.
Separately, Galaxy said the Senate banking bill goes beyond the House-passed Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on illicit financing, and warned it could expand the Treasury Department’s access to cryptocurrency transfers through a new special measures authority.
Galaxy compared this authority to tools created after the September 11 attacks under the Patriot Act, arguing that Treasury could apply this authority broadly across foreign transaction sites and channels if it designated certain jurisdictions, institutions or categories of transactions as having major money laundering problems.
The push for a framework in the Senate comes as the Trump administration signals a more favorable tone toward parts of the industry and as lawmakers try to replace uncertainty caused by rule enforcement with clearer lines on oversight, disclosures and market behavior.
For cryptocurrency markets, the next few days will determine whether lawmakers will water down the bill to keep the big platforms on their side, or the bill will slow down again, leaving the industry to face the same set of government directives and court battles it has endured for years.
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