Coinbase CEO Pushes Back on Blame for CLARITY Act Failure

Highlights:

• Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong rejected claims that he caused the CLARITY Act to stall in the Senate.
• Armstrong said he opposed an earlier draft because key issues around DeFi and stablecoins needed fixing.
• He said the revised bill addressed those concerns, and he strongly supported the final Senate version.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has rejected claims that he was responsible for the CLARITY Act failing to move forward in the U.S. Senate. In a September 19 post on X, Armstrong said The Wall Street Journal was preparing a story that would blame Coinbase and him personally for the bill’s setback.

Armstrong said that version of events does not reflect Coinbase’s role in the negotiations. He explained that he opposed an earlier draft of the bill in January because he believed several major issues still needed to be fixed. “The boring TLDR: in January I opposed a draft of the bill going into a committee vote, because it needed a lot of work on DeFi, tokenization, CFTC authority, and stablecoin rewards,” Armstrong wrote.

According to Armstrong, the January draft was not ready to move forward. Support for it was also divided at the time. He said Coinbase later worked with other parties to improve the legislation.

Here we go again! The WSJ is working on a story blaming Coinbase and me personally for the CLARITY Act not passing.

The Journal has repeatedly been hostile to CLARITY in its reporting, regurgitating bank lobby talking points, while I’ve spent years pushing for crypto…

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 19, 2026

Armstrong Says Key Problems Were Fixed

Armstrong identified four main concerns with the earlier draft: decentralized finance, tokenization, CFTC authority and stablecoin rewards. He said lawmakers later addressed all four areas before another version of the bill went through committee about four months later.

Armstrong defended his decision to oppose the earlier version. “I’m proud to have done it, and would do it again, because it helped create a better bill. One step of many along the way,” he said. He also made clear that his position changed after the bill was revised. Armstrong said he strongly supported the final CLARITY Act draft that reached the Senate.

His comments came after the Senate failed to advance the legislation on September 15. The procedural vote received 50 votes in favor and 49 against, but supporters needed 60 votes to move the bill forward. Four Republican senators joined Democrats in blocking the measure.

CLARITY Act Remains Stalled in the Senate

The CLARITY Act aims to create a broader regulatory framework for the U.S. crypto market. One of its main goals is to make the roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) clearer. However, the Senate debate involved several issues. Democrats raised concerns about ethics provisions, while banking groups pushed back on parts of the bill linked to stablecoins and competition for deposits. Those disagreements remained unresolved before the September 15 vote.

Armstrong also accused The Wall Street Journal of repeating arguments used by banking lobbyists. That is Armstrong’s claim and has not been independently established as fact. “The final draft of CLARITY that went to the Senate was great, and I strongly supported it,” Armstrong wrote. He added that Coinbase will continue pushing for clearer crypto rules in the United States.