The future of the current American crypto market may depend on the Senate vote expected this month, and few people are watching it close to Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad.
In a interview on Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria earlier today, Shirzad said that the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act – known as the CLARITY Act – represents the first financial regulation since Dodd-Frank, and this passage is possible.
“This is going to be the biggest financial law that Congress has passed in a long time, since Dodd-Frank,” Shirzad said. “What this does is make the crypto sector more clear.”
The stakes are high. Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis printed a vague warning on X on May 29, telling lawmakers that Congress represents the last window to act. “The next window for digital legislation after Congress should be 2030,” Lummis wrote. “Until then, these developers remain exposed without legal protections, and law enforcement remains without the tools to prosecute wrongdoers. The CLARITY Act does both.”
Bill to be purified The Senate Banking Committee voted 15-9 on May 14, with Democratic Senators Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland crossing party lines to support it. But all the downvotes are another math problem. The bill needs 60 votes to clear the Senate, and with mid-November elections tightening the legislative calendar, the window for passage is measured in weeks.
Shirzad expressed confidence that the figures are available.
“The Republican caucus is united,” he said. “The president has been involved in this, and there is a very large group of Democrats who want to get this done. We have about 80 Democrats in the House who voted for this, and I think we will get a similar number in the Senate.”
The US government’s pro-crypto laws
President Trump has made crypto regulation a priority at the White House, sending on Truth Social is a promise to create a “future-proof” digital content marketplace — and its team is looking to sign up for July 4.
Shirzad created the currency not as a crypto-versus-bank battle, but as an expansion of opportunities for the traditional financial sector.
“This will be the first law since the 90s that gives banks a new license to enter the crypto space,” he said. “I know JPMorgan wants to get in. Every other big bank wants to get into the crypto space. We welcome their entry.”
Coinbase’s trust goes beyond the rules. The exchange scored a major victory on May 29, when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued guidelines that removed Coinbase Financial Markets from connecting US customers to global crypto markets.
Coinbase Financial Markets became the first CFTC-regulated futures trading service to offer domestic customers access to global crypto perpetuals and options – instruments that account for about 80% of the total volume of crypto trading. The exchange acquired the Deribit platform, which has $31 billion in open Bitcoin options, and it was launched immediately. Commercial access is scheduled for another day.
“This is a big opening,” Shirzad said. “It shows that the US administration is trying to do what the president has said – which is to bring crypto markets to US soil.”
When it comes to the big crypto market, Shirzad pushed back against any notion that big markets are the ones driving the money.
“We are very bullish about crypto as a technology,” he said, pointing to the integration of blockchain infrastructure across major banks and financial services companies. “Crypto is now a legitimate form of finance.”
He described the coming era as “tokenized” – financial services that are built on the blockchain – with the CLARITY Act providing a legal basis that will open the participation of all crypto-native companies and affiliated organizations.
Only one issue remains for the stablecoin reward. Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks persuasive The agreement in May allows for the creation of rewards for stablecoins based on economic or performance equivalents to bank interest, while maintaining incentives based on activity. Shirzad said the language has been fixed.
“The key architects of this disagreement – Senator Tillis and Senator Alsobrooks – have made it clear that this language has settled,” he said. “This is the compromise they want to protect with their partners.”
Dimon calls Coinbase’s Armstrong “full of sh*t”
On May 28, when JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sat down with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business and shot straight at the bill – and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
In an interview and in remarks at the Reagan National Economic Forum, Dimon called Armstrong the banking industry’s embodiment of fraud, using language that is widely circulated in the financial media.
Armstrong responded with a hockey-themed meme that greatly helped the entire crypto industry.
Dimon’s core objections to the stablecoin award offer – the same Coinbase spent months fighting to protect. He added that allowing crypto platforms to offer rewards like yields on stablecoins gives the platforms a banking advantage over lending banks, which operate under different rules.
“If you want to be a bank, be a bank,” Dimon told Bartiromo. He also raised concerns about violations of anti-money laundering laws and compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act, saying the money would be unenforceable in its current state and that banks would not accept it without changes.
The stand is not without confusion. Coinbase uses JPMorgan as its bank — a fact that Shirzad unexpectedly made.
“JP Morgan is our bank, and they’ve worked with us and stayed with us, even through the Biden administration,” Shirzad said.
