A sweeping bill to regulate the cryptocurrency industry could be finalized within the next few weeks, according to Michael Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy, who said the legislation doesn’t need to be perfect to move forward.
Negotiations were thrown into disarray this past week, hours ahead of a planned Senate Banking Committee hearing on Thursday to amend and vote on crypto market structure legislation.
Those negotiations began to crack, particularly around the treatment of stablecoin rewards. Banking groups have sharply criticized a stablecoin law known as GENIUS, which passed over the summer. While the law bars issuers from paying direct interest to stablecoin holders, it does not prohibit third-party platforms such as Coinbase from offering rewards. Many in the crypto industry have said banks are trying to curb competition, and note that stablecoin yield was already debated during the summer.
“I do think there will be a compromise on this,” Novogratz told CNBC on Friday morning. “I don’t think it will be great for crypto, but I think it’ll be fine. And for me, I just keep saying, we got to get this bill passed so we can move on and the industry can start growing.”
“And if it’s not perfect, who cares? We’ll fix it in time,” he added.
Democratic staff from the Senate Agriculture Committee and the Senate Banking Committee are scheduled to hold a call with representatives from the cryptocurrency industry at noon on Friday to discuss legislation on crypto market structure, according to two people familiar with the matter. CoinDesk earlier reported news of the meeting.
What went down
On Monday night, the Senate Banking Committee released updated bill text spanning more than 270 pages. Amendments, or changes, to the bill were due on Tuesday afternoon, and over 70 were filed ahead of the planned markup on Thursday.
Then late Wednesday, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong posted on X that the behemoth crypto exchange cannot support the bill as it is written. Armstrong’s concerns stemmed from four main areas — the treatment of tokenized equities, DeFi issues, provisions that he said would “kill rewards on stablecoins,” and the role of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A few hours after Armstrong’s post, the banking committee cancelled its markup hearing, punting it to a later date, which has not yet been scheduled.
There was not one specific issue that caused Coinbase, which has growing political influence and lobbying power, to pull support for a bill it had previously championed. The decision to walk away from the latest draft was not made lightly, a source familiar told The Block on Wednesday night.
In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Coinbase’s Armstrong said he would prefer to get a bill done, but can’t support the updated draft.
“Frankly, I’d rather have no bill than a bad bill,” Armstrong said.
“The current draft text that was shown to us earlier this week, for instance, would kill probably three or four different product lines that we have already in market,” Armstrong said. “And so if this is going to be a giveaway to the banks, I’d rather just stick with GENIUS, which is already in law and we are able to operate our business just fine in that environment.”
© 2026 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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