Coinbase Pushes Crypto Deeper Into Banking as Senate Prepares Sept. 15 Vote on Clarity Act

Bitcoin fell to $58,000 in June, according to the Epoch Times, capping what Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong calls a roughly year-long 'down period' following the coin's all-time high near $124,000 to $126,080 touched in September and October of last year, per the Epoch Times and Bitcoin Magazine. By August, the coin had clawed back to $80,000, its highest level since May, logging a three-day rally the Epoch Times called the strongest since 2023.

Armstrong told CNBC in a Thursday interview, cited by Bitcoin Magazine, that he believes the bottom is behind bitcoin and reiterated his call that the coin hits $400,000 by 2030. "Most of the down periods last about a year, and we've actually just come across the one-year mark for this down period, so I personally believe that the bottom is in," Armstrong said. Bitcoin was trading near $77,318 at the time of that interview, according to Bitcoin Magazine, before climbing further to $80,000 by Aug. 25.

Armstrong is betting heavily on the CLARITY Act, federal legislation meant to formally divide regulatory oversight of digital assets between securities, commodities, and stablecoin categories. Speaking on the Katie Miller Podcast on Aug. 26, per Benzinga, Armstrong said President Trump had recently brought industry and regulators together to push the bill, and he expected a Senate vote around Sept. 15.

The bill was already delayed once in August, according to Bitcoin Magazine. Whether it clears the Senate on schedule remains an open question. No vote has occurred as of Sept. 12.

Armstrong pointed to the precedent set by the GENIUS Act, stablecoin legislation passed last year. "We saw well over 150 large companies integrate stablecoins within just a three-month period" after that law passed, he said, predicting CLARITY could trigger a similar wave for tokenized equities.

The SEC has already moved on its own track. Chairman Paul Atkins announced a new digital-asset framework called Regulation Crypto Assets on Aug. 18, saying it would give "crypto asset entrepreneurs and market participants clear pathways to raise capital under the federal securities laws," according to the Epoch Times.

Institutions Are Already Building

Coinbase Vice Chair Ryan VanGrack argues the debate has already moved past whether banks should touch crypto. According to Crypto Briefing, VanGrack said traditional finance is now focused on how to integrate it, pointing to a consortium of major banks forming to issue a joint stablecoin and to Coinbase's own partnership extending stablecoin services to more than 1,000 community banks and credit unions.

Coinbase President Emilie Choi and CFO Alesia Haas laid out the numbers behind that shift at a GS Research event, according to MarketBeat. Bitcoin spot trading, which made up more than half of Coinbase's revenue when the company went public in 2021, is now about 10% of it, Haas said. Subscription and services revenue, driven largely by stablecoin activity, is running near $2.5 billion annually. Coinbase now holds roughly 12% of the world's on-chain assets, per Haas.

Coinbase's prediction-markets product, which launched through a partnership with Kalshi, has reached a $100 million annualized revenue run rate after just six months, Haas said. Contracts and revenue doubled quarter over quarter, and average daily traders tripled following the launch of crypto binary contracts, she said. Choi said the company does not view prediction markets as cannibalizing existing trading revenue but as a new way to engage customers with contracts tied to weather, politics, and sports.

On tokenization, Coinbase has publicly framed the technology as a way to bring 'real ownership' and shareholder rights on-chain, according to a company statement reported by Coinfomania on Sept. 10. Armstrong told Benzinga that "stocks are getting tokenized now" and that various investment funds are moving on-chain as well.

Skeptics of the crypto industry's regulatory push have long argued that looser capital-raising rules and faster institutional adoption could also make it easier for speculative or poorly vetted digital assets to reach retail investors before proper safeguards exist. That concern hasn't been resolved by the CLARITY Act's supporters, who frame the bill as the fix rather than the risk. No independent assessment of the bill's investor-protection provisions was cited in the reporting reviewed here.

The Senate vote Armstrong expects around Sept. 15 will show whether the political momentum crypto executives describe actually translates into passed law, or whether this becomes the second delay in as many months.