PALM BEACH, Fla. — Banking trade groups, rather than individual banks, are primarily responsible for stalled negotiations on crypto market structure legislation, said Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
The banks themselves are looking at crypto as an opportunity, he said Wednesday at the World Liberty Forum held at Mar-a-Lago.
“For whatever reason, established industries sometimes have trade groups and they look at the world with a zero-sum mindset [where they believe] for the banks to win, crypto has to lose,” he said. “They don’t see this as a positive. [step].”
Banking trade groups have represented the industry in meetings with the crypto industry held by the White House since the Senate Banking Committee’s push to advance market structure legislation fell apart last month. The latest such meeting, which took place last week, saw the banking industry stick to its demands that the bill block stablecoin rewards.
The next meeting is set to take place on Thursday morning, people familiar with the plan told CoinDesk.
Read more: Crypto’s banking opponents didn’t want to act in the latest White House meeting on the bill
Armstrong said he expected some sort of compromise in which banks would have new benefits under a new draft market structure law, although he did not elaborate. When the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act stalled the night before a Senate Banking Committee hearing, it was after Armstrong publicly withdrew his firm’s support.
In the current talks, the Coinbase co-founder claimed that individual small and medium-sized banks did not really fear deposit flight to stablecoin issuers, but rather said their more pressing concerns were with deposit flight to larger banks.
Big banks are also leaning into crypto, he said, adding that Coinbase supports crypto infrastructure for “five of the biggest banks in the world.”
Other banks are hiring blockchain or crypto-focused employees on LinkedIn.
“We now live in this world where we have regulated US stablecoins with rewards,” he said. “You have to accept it as a reality and decide whether you want to treat it as an opportunity or as a threat.”
