Did Coinbase just derail the crypto industry's political future?

"January was going to be a landmark month for the crypto industry. The Senate would start negotiating the finer details of the CLARITY Act, a major law that would finally enshrine the fundamental structure of how the crypto market could legally operate in the United States: what digital assets counted as a security versus a commodity, what regulatory responsibilities companies had to abide by, what legal protections consumers could have."

"And crypto, which had spent decades navigating a regulatory gray zone, would finally have a set of rules to work off of - maybe not perfect rules, but hard rules. "[We] don't want to be in a place where, with the change of every administration, what you can and can't do with software, or what you can and can't publish, changes," Connor Brown, the Head of Strategy"

January was expected to be a landmark month for the cryptocurrency sector as Senate negotiations over the CLARITY Act promised to define which digital assets qualify as securities or commodities. The bill would clarify regulatory responsibilities, consumer protections, and how companies can legally operate. The House had passed its version and the White House was poised to sign, with bipartisan agreement on fundamentals. The industry anticipated enforceable rules after decades in a regulatory gray zone. A major exchange withdrew its support at the last minute, provoking sharp backlash from firms across the ecosystem, including Kraken and a16z.

Read at The Verge