Coinbase Head of Institutional Strategy John D’Agostino says he remains “relentlessly optimistic” the CLARITY Act passes, even as Wall Street odds-makers put the bill’s chances well below 50%.
Key Takeaways
John D’Agostino, Coinbase’s Head of Institutional Strategy, says he is relentlessly optimistic the CLARITY Act passes.JPMorgan puts CLARITY Act passage odds at 37%, while Polymarket bettors assign just 31%.The Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill 15-9, but it still needs 60 votes before the August 8 recess.The reason I’m relentlessly optimistic is I think we’ve seen this before. So genius, everybody remembers genius passing flawlessly, but it was argued until the very, very last minute and it was up in the air.
We’ve got ethics nailed down, we’ve got nominations nailed down, we’ve got a bipartisan bill on the substance, we should be good to go.
Markets Aren’t So SureArmstrong pointed to a regulatory backstop if Congress stalls. He said Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) head Michael Selig could issue their own market-structure rules using existing authority. Atkins has separately confirmed the SEC would move independently if lawmakers miss the deadline, meaning the industry would get some version of clearer rules with or without Congress acting first.
That contingency plan changes the stakes of the current fight since a Senate-passed CLARITY Act would carry the weight of statute and be harder to unwind under a future administration, while agency-level rules from the SEC and CFTC could be revised or reversed the next time regulators change. Armstrong’s comments suggest Coinbase is hedging against delay rather than treating passage as make-or-break.
