US Policy @Coinbase. Former @ABABankers @CUNA @WeilGotshal. Dog dad. Law, politics, banking, crypto. Lots of my own opinions.
Washington, DC
Joined June 2009
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Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
NY Mag's long @SenGillibrand piece ends with Maple the Labradoodle barking at the reporter, which seems about right. The case against the senator: she wants rules for crypto, while the experts quoted would rather hope "no one uses these things," in a market already measured in trillions. That's not a regulatory philosophy, and it doesn't protect a single consumer. It's wishcasting.
Crypto appeared on Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s radar not long after her presidential campaign fizzled out in 2019. The more she learned, she said, the more frustrated she became that lawmakers seemed content to leave it alone.
In 2025, Gillibrand was the lead Democratic sponsor of the GENIUS Act, which laid down federal rules for stablecoins. This year, she played much the same role for the CLARITY Act, the crypto industry’s great unfinished legislative project, pressing fellow Democrats for their votes. The sweeping bill would have moved much of digital-asset trading out of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s securities-law regime and into a new framework overseen by the chronically underfunded and much weaker Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
“In my opinion, the CLARITY Act was a financial crisis waiting to happen,” says Lee Reiners, a former Federal Reserve Bank of New York official. When FTX collapsed in 2022, the damage remained largely contained within crypto because digital assets still had relatively few connections to banks and traditional markets. CLARITY, Reiners argued, would have helped erase that separation: “Certainly, if CLARITY had passed, it would have supercharged the integration of crypto into the financial system.”
Gillibrand now finds herself in a crypto-related ethical morass. Her 22-year-old son, Theo, is the head of a start-up backed in part by crypto investors — including one who donates to his mother — that is seeking regulatory approval to bring a crypto-native trading product into conventional financial markets. Her campaign coffers are stuffed with crypto money, while former aides have rotated between her office and the industry.
Nate Weisberg reports on one of crypto’s most important Democratic allies and what happens if Gillibrand succeeds in making crypto easier to use and more deeply embedded in ordinary finance: nymag.visitlink.me/_kvMeE
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
This weekend’s WSJ piece is misdirection, and a failed attempt attempt to pin CLARITY stalling on @brian_armstrong. I love the Journal, but it has posted numerous articles and editorials this year parroting banking industry talking points on CLARITY. This piece is no exception, right down to a string of false characterizations.
What it buries: the Journal’s own systemic bias and missing fact-checks, any skepticism of the banking lobby’s claims, and the reality that (outside of a few offices) the vast majority of Democrats appear never to have negotiated in good faith.
Instead, the article claims Coinbase secured big wins in the final months but wanted more. That could not be further from the truth. For eight months, the industry (including Coinbase) gave ground again and again, only to be told, every time, that 90% of the way on an issue still wasn’t enough to close it out. No line is a red line when every line is red.
Here’s what the Journal won’t say: those no votes protected no one. They wiped away the consumer protections, ethics provisions, AML tools, and real intermediary regulation the bill would have built. Not too different from the way this article waves away five years of hard work with a fairy tale.
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
The WSJ wants a blame game. It got the story wrong, again. @coinbase and @brian_armstrong have consistently fought for CLARITY and for smart policy that benefits our industry and country. Let's look at the actual facts.
On CLARITY, Coinbase advocated fiercely for our country to finally have what has been missing: comprehensive market structure. On rewards, the Ag title, the Banking title, and the entire bill, they prioritized what would best serve our industry, consumer protection, and most importantly, our country. And on rewards, Coinbase, and our industry, made real concessions, and many of them, to give this critical legislation a shot at moving forward. I was in those rooms and meetings. The compromise was real, and Coinbase helped us get there.
I've worked with Coinbase on CLARITY, and the WSJ's reporting could not be further from the truth. Time and again, I saw Coinbase make substantive recommendations, negotiate in good faith, work with the industry, serve as a resource to members of Congress, and yes, make concessions to move this process forward.
Coinbase and Brian's advocacy did not happen overnight. When the prior SEC made regulation by enforcement its playbook against our industry, Coinbase fought back. They petitioned the SEC for real rules. When they were stonewalled, they took it to the Third Circuit, which called the agency's reasoning "conclusory." They saw the SEC's enforcement case against them dismissed with prejudice. They sued under FOIA to expose the debanking campaign. To suggest that Coinbase has not put our industry first, or is somehow to blame for the failed vote, is egregiously inaccurate.
Yes, CLARITY's failed vote was deeply disappointing, but our industry is more united today than ever. A piece like this is built to manufacture division right when we're locked arm in arm and focused on next steps, including supporting the regulatory agencies that are moving quickly to provide the clarity we need. It won't work.
Coinbase has led from the front for our industry, so has Brian. These are the facts.
wsj.com/finance/currencies/c…
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
CFTC is not playing around.
Wasting no time, yesterday they filed what appears to be a proposed rule for interagency review entitled “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets.”
Things are going to move fast in DC.
reginfo.gov/public/do/eoRevi…
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
I would say the same thing about @Sen_Alsobrooks. She was heroic and principled in her efforts to find compromise on the toughest issues. And her work, along with @SenRubenGallego and @SenGillibrand, should be recognized and commended. The CLARITY Act is a good bill, and I have faith we’ll still get it done. Some day.
Completely agree. @SenThomTillis is principled, fearless, hard nosed and fair. We weren’t thrilled with the compromise he and @Sen_Alsobrooks came up with on rewards, but it was a thoughtful good faith effort to get it right. It was especially impressive to see him stick by his compromise even under enormous pressure. Outstanding person and public servant.
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
Tomorrow, the Senate will consider the CLARITY Act.
A year ago, a group of Democratic senators put out their own framework for what serious market structure legislation needed to accomplish. They identified seven pillars: closing the regulatory gap, clarifying the status of digital assets, bringing issuers and platforms into the regulatory framework, combating illicit finance, preventing corruption and abuse, and ensuring fair and effective regulation.
Every one of those seven pillars is addressed in the legislation before the Senate tomorrow.
And that’s only part of the story. The final text incorporates 126 additional substantive changes requested by Democrats. It includes a historic ethics framework, stronger enforcement — including a role for state attorneys general — new protections around conflicts and insider abuse, stronger consumer and customer-property protections, tougher illicit-finance rules, and greater accountability for the regulators charged with overseeing these markets.
None of that happened by accident. It is the product of more than a year of members raising hard questions, negotiating difficult issues and materially reshaping the legislation.
Congress rarely gets the opportunity to write the rules for an entirely new financial market from the ground up. This is one of those moments.
The bill before the Senate tomorrow is fundamentally different from where this process began. Democratic negotiators played a major role in getting it here. They should vote for it tomorrow.
Let’s pass CLARITY.
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
Great piece in @FortuneMagazine by @coinbase’s @johnjdagostino and @RegionsBank’s Chris Kennedy about the opportunity that stablecoins offer to community banks.
New technology can level the playing field - giving smaller banks access to faster payments, global settlement and modern treasury services that once required the scale of the largest institutions.
That means more tools to serve their customers, compete and grow.
CLARITY builds on this opportunity by giving banks the legal tools to participate in the digital financial system - one more reason for the Senate to vote yes next week.
fortune.com/2026/09/12/commu…
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
Citi joins a growing list of major financial firms recognizing the need for regulatory CLARITY (Goldman, Schwab, Fidelity, BlackRock…).
The debate isn’t about tradfi vs crypto. It’s about enhanced customer protections & US leadership/innovation vs status quo.
Who’s next?
INSIGHT: @Citi CEO backs the CLARITY Act despite stablecoin yield concerns.
"We have not given up on pushing to get some improvements made to the bill, but we would like to see a good bill go through. I think it would be excellent for the system."
If you’ve wondered what “doing crypto policy” actually looks like… it’s a lot of rooms like this.
Today’s Senate staff briefing focused on DeFi. Dozens of briefings over the last few months, and always grateful for the chance to answer questions and help staff work through the details of the CLARITY Act.
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
This story gets DOJ’s position wrong, gets Section 1960 wrong, and gets both Senator Cortez Masto’s amendment and the Grassley compromise wrong. I’d be impressed if it wasn’t so disappointing to see more unsupported anti-Clarity reporting.
Putting aside the fact that @BrendanPedersen does not include recent, directly-on-point, publicly reported DOJ statements from June 23 saying the exact opposite of the supposed DOJ email cited here (see below), the bigger issue is that the article and the DOJ statements cited within do not accurately cite the criminal code.
Money laundering is prohibited in 18 USC 1956 and 1957; operating an unlicensed money transmitting business is covered in 18 USC 1960. The BRCA clarifies the application of “money transmitting” for the BSA and 1960 and says nothing at all about money laundering or 1956 or 1957.
Further breakdown in replies
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
The impact of stablecoins on small banks has received a lot of attention, but not for the right reasons.
Let’s recap: Multiple empirical studies have found no meaningful link between stablecoin growth and bank deposits. As USDC grew to ~$75B, overall bank and community bank deposits grew right alongside it. In fact, over the last 6 months, USDC has grown 4.6%, and total demand deposits have grown 4.5%. No displacement there.
Now the part small banks should actually care about: stablecoins enable ~4,000 community and regional banks to punch above their weight. Same 24/7 settlement and cross-border rails as a $3T GSIB. And with partners like @Fiserv, @Visa, and @crossriverbank, it's a configuration, not a multi-year build. No billion dollar IT budget or crypto team required.
For more detail, see our new @coinbase Institute @CoinbaseCBI paper: "Small Banks and Stablecoins: Nothing to Fear, Much to Gain"
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
We’re on the Hill every day this week pushing for Clarity.
Today, @SummerMersinger and @LindsayFraser0 joined @Multicoin’s @xethalis and @Coinbase’s @RobinRCook in the Senate to brief staff on the Clarity Act as we approach a floor vote.
It’s time for Clarity. 🇺🇸
Crypto policy didn't become bipartisan overnight.
For the first time, the U.S. is on the cusp of establishing a comprehensive federal framework for digital asset markets—a moment years in the making.
I joined the Blockchain Bulletin podcast to discuss the GENIUS Act, the CLARITY Act, and what comes next for U.S. crypto policy.
paymentexpert.com/2026/06/30…
New federal rules are not a loophole.
New AML obligations are not deregulation.
New law enforcement tools are not “window dressing.”
The criticism misses what's actually in the bill: stronger AML requirements, clearer compliance obligations, and additional authorities for law enforcement to pursue illicit finance.
Straight from DOJ, the June 23 letter from @NationalSheriff @WeAreNAAUSA @ndaajustice @TheIACP "contains factual inaccuracies and mischaracterizes Administration policy" regarding the Clarity Act and the BRCA, which protects developers who create noncustodial software from being misclassified as money transmitters.
DOJ rightfully points out that "law enforcement's access to relevant information will not change, as these individuals are not and have never been subject to the [Bank Secrecy Act]. The bill does not restrict DOJ's ability to investigate or prosecute criminal activity involving digital assets, including drug trafficking, human smuggling, and terrorism financing.”
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
Like many in this industry, I was drawn to crypto because I believe this technology can meaningfully benefit people when it is allowed to develop responsibly: by expanding access to financial services, giving individuals greater control over their assets, supporting open-source innovation that makes financial infrastructure more transparent and secure, and keeping the next generation of finance and the internet in the United States.
Reading this letter, there is a fundamental misunderstanding about what the Clarity Act does. As a reminder, the Clarity Act:
- applies BSA and sanctions obligations – including SARs reporting – to all digital commodity brokers, dealers, and exchanges (sec. 201)
- creates a new special-measure authority for digital asset-related illicit finance – which gives Treasury significantly stronger tools to combat illicit activity in the digital asset ecosystem (sec. 303)
- brings controlled, ‘DeFi in name only’ protocols into the regulatory perimeter (sec. 301)
- creates a safe harbor for temporary holds on suspicious transactions, allowing stablecoin issuers and digital asset service providers to place short, good-faith holds based on suspected unlawful activity or a written law enforcement request (sec. 305)
- strengthens seizure and forfeiture tools by adding digital assets to the definition of “monetary instruments” in the Bank Secrecy Act (sec. 307)
- requires intermediaries connecting customers to DeFi to maintain risk-management programs addressing money laundering, sanctions evasion, fraud, and market manipulation (sec. 308)
- establishes an information sharing program between private sector entities and federal law enforcement to share information about illicit finance risks and threats (sec. 203)
- creates a federal working group on illicit finance with the mandate to develop proposals to improve anti-money laundering efforts related to digital assets (sec. 204)
And Section 604 does one narrow thing: It prevents non-custodial software developers from being misclassified as money transmitters when they do not custody assets or control transactions.
It does not immunize criminals. It does not limit sanctions enforcement. It does not stop prosecutions for money laundering, fraud, or terrorist financing.
I agree with the signatories of the letter: Regulatory certainty should never come at the expense of accountability, transparency, victim protection, or public safety.
Fortunately, the Clarity Act does not force a choice between innovation and public safety.
Without Clarity, we are left with the status quo: gaps in oversight, no expanded BSA/AML obligations for key digital asset intermediaries, limited tools for federal agencies, and more activity pushed offshore and outside the U.S. regulatory perimeter.
That outcome serves no one. Not consumers, not law enforcement, not responsible innovators, and not the United States.
To the signatories of this letter: We share the same goal. We must hold bad actors accountable. We must protect consumers. We must ensure this technology develops under American rules.
The answer is to pass a framework that brings digital asset activity into the regulatory perimeter, gives law enforcement strong, effective tools, and makes clear that innovation and accountability are not competing values.
🚨NEW: In a letter to administration officials, a group of four law enforcement organizations say they remain concerned about certain provisions in the Clarity Act, including Section 604 (the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act), arguing it would create gaps in oversight and accountability that could hinder efforts to investigate and prosecute illicit activity.
They also contend the bill does not go far enough to establish safeguards commonly applied to traditional financial institutions and could exempt some crypto participants from certain KYC/AML reporting requirements.
It comes after weeks of meetings between these groups, the administration, Congress and the crypto industry aimed at resolving concerns with the bill’s language, particularly around the BRCA, which has emerged as a central sticking point in negotiations over bringing the Clarity Act to the Senate floor.
Notably, @GLFOP and @NAPOpolice, both of which have been deeply involved in those discussions, did not sign the letter.
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
Hey @BrendanPedersen, there are a number of @coinbase people on the list because we hire lots of experienced national security veterans to keep our platform safe and to partner with law enforcement when they need our help. We've even won awards and commendations for the help we provide in going after illicit activity. This is a good thing.
Robin Cook 🛡️ retweeted
Tell me you haven't read the bill without telling me, JD.
nitter.cf/amandatums/status/2054…
Clarity Act Title III ("Responsible Innovation in Decentralized Finance") was added to the Clarity Act to address concerns related to illicit finance and digital assets. It did not exist in the September draft. It was specifically added in response to concerns raised by prosecutors/law enforcement, to provide even more tools than were already in Title II ("Protecting Against Illicit Finance").
Anyone saying this bill does not give enough tools or runway for law enforcement to go after bad actors should *actually read* read Title II or Title III.
