"You are the reason we are in this mess." Coinbase CEO blamed after CLARITY stalls months after stablecoin rewards U-turn

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is facing fresh backlash after the Senate failed to advance CLARITY, eight months after his crypto exchange abruptly rejected an earlier draft partly over stablecoin rewards.

• The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, legislation meant to establish federal rules for crypto markets and divide oversight between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), failed to clear the Senate's 60-vote procedural threshold on Sept. 15.
• The setback came despite months of negotiations and revisions.

Armstrong called the result a "disappointment" in an X post on Wednesday, Sept. 16, but said crypto "can't wait on Congress anymore" and argued that the SEC and CFTC could move ahead under their existing powers.

He also suggested the outcome may be "for the best," pointing to the already-enacted GENIUS Act as more permissive on stablecoin rewards and saying some CLARITY concessions had been difficult to accept.

But the response from parts of the crypto community was hostile.

"You are the reason we are in this mess," a user under the alias @Dnoe21254 replied. Another told Armstrong that CLARITY "could've passed six months ago but you blocked it," while a third said his "ego got in the way."

Coinbase had already walked away once

Coinbase had spent years pressing Congress to create crypto market-structure legislation, arguing as recently as 2025 that Congress "must act" rather than leave the industry dependent on regulators.

But on Jan. 14, Armstrong abruptly withdrew Coinbase's support for the Senate Banking Committee's then-current CLARITY draft, hours before a scheduled markup.

"We'd rather have no bill than a bad bill," Armstrong wrote.

He cited several objections, including restrictions on tokenized equities and DeFi, changes to CFTC authority and draft provisions that he said would "kill rewards on stablecoins." The committee postponed its markup that night.

The legislation didn't die there since a revised version eventually advanced from the Senate Banking Committee in May by a 15-9 vote.

• The Coinformer reached out to Coinbase for comments but didn't hear back by press time.

The fight was partly about banks

At the center of the January dispute was a fight left unresolved by the GENIUS Act, the 2025 law that created federal rules for payment stablecoins.

GENIUS prohibits stablecoin issuers themselves from paying holders interest or yield simply for holding a stablecoin. But it doesn't explicitly stop intermediaries such as crypto exchanges from offering rewards, according to the Congressional Research Service.

• Banks pushed lawmakers to extend those restrictions, arguing that yield-bearing stablecoins could pull deposits out of banks and reduce their ability to lend.
• Coinbase opposed that push, with Armstrong characterizing it as banks trying to use regulation to suppress competition.

Still, Coinbase's January reversal was not the only reason CLARITY failed in September.

The latest Senate vote was also caught up in disputes over presidential crypto ethics, illicit-finance protections and banking concerns, with lawmakers failing to assemble the 60 votes needed to move forward.