Full text
Bitcoin Magazine
Coinbase Executive Says Clarity Act Has โTremendous Momentumโ in the Senate
Coinbase Vice Chair Ryan VanGrack said the Clarity Act has gained โtremendous momentumโ in the Senate, in a CNBC โSquawk Boxโ appearance that made the case for a federal crypto framework and touched on bitcoin, blockchain, and the industryโs uneasy truce with Wall Street.
VanGrack, a former SEC official, framed the Clarity Act as an overdue set of rules rather than a giveaway. โItโs not about no regulation,โ he said. โThis is about imposing regulation on the industry for the first time.โ He described a โwin-win-winโ for American investors, innovators, and standards should the measure pass, and said a bipartisan group of senators has kept up work โeven in the last few weeks and days.โ
Clarity Act updates
The House passed its version of the Clarity Act last year, and attention has shifted to the Senate, where the path to 60 votes remains the central hurdle.
The Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill in a 15-9 vote this spring, with two Democrats crossing over, and House members have urged the Senate to act before the August recess. The measure sits in a narrow window as negotiators work out remaining terms.
President Trump added his voice last week, posting on Truth Social in support of Senator Lindsey Graham and calling on the Senate to pass the bill. Trump framed the stakes in terms of competition with China, a message he has repeated as he presses the chamber to move .
VanGrack said Democrats have won concessions that strengthen the billโs consumer protections.
JUST IN: Coinbase Vice Chair talks CLARITY ACT on CNBC
"The Democrats have obtained meaningful concessions to make what was already a strong consumer protection bill, THAT much stronger" pic.twitter.com/y3n04dKdRi
โ Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 20, 2026
He pointed to an illicit-finance framework, an โFTX loopholeโ that the text would close, insider-trading safeguards, and added disclosures.
โAcross the board, the Democrats have obtained meaningful concessions to make what was already a strong consumer protection bill that much stronger,โ he said.
He said the bill would not change how crypto is classified as a commodity or a security in a fundamental sense, and would preserve the registration, examination, and surveillance structure from the House version.
Asked how the industry reconciles with skeptics like JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon, VanGrack pointed to a wave of bank and institutional deals.
โNot a week goes by,โ he said, where a firm fails to announce a new crypto project or investment. He predicted an โinevitable convergence,โ a point at which the market stops separating traditional finance from crypto and treats each as a modern financial institution.
That convergence has played out in public, and in conflict. JPMorgan and Coinbase announced a partnership to widen crypto access, and the bank has moved to accept bitcoin as loan collateral and to let clients trade it .
Dimon, for his part, has declared war on the Clarity Act and aimed a crude insult at Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, a reminder that the dรฉtente carries friction.
Is bitcoin real?
The interview turned to a sharper question from CNBCโs Andrew Ross Sorkin: whether blockchain is real but bitcoin is not. VanGrack called it โa fair questionโ and said the technologyโs benefits stand on their own โ faster settlement, more transparency, and round-the-clock transactions.
He argued that no one building a financial system today would recreate the infrastructure of the past century. He cited Citadel Securities, which he said made another large investment in the crypto economy last week, as a sign that major institutions are trending the same course.
Sorkin pressed the harder edge of the design: the technology aims to remove the counterparty a customer might call when something goes wrong. VanGrack conceded the point as fair, then countered with the costs of the current system โ days to reconcile trades and the counterparty risk that delay creates.
โIโm not here to tell you itโs the wrong technology,โ he said. He acknowledged open questions, including whether crypto accounts should carry interest or loyalty rewards, a debate that bankers have raised and that the law will settle as โa blunt instrument.โ
He closed on the case for Clarity Act passage. โIn the absence of clarity, you do not have a federal oversight and framework,โ he said. โSo whether you love crypto or hate crypto, you should wantโ the Clarity Act.
This post Coinbase Executive Says Clarity Act Has โTremendous Momentumโ in the Senate first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman .
Comments
No comments yet โ be the first to weigh in ๐
No comments yet. Be the first!