Even though the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act failed to secure the required 60 votes in the U.S. Senate this week, Coinbase Global's (Nasdaq: COIN) Chief Policy Officer, Faryar Shirzad, ha
Even though the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act failed to secure the required 60 votes in the U.S. Senate this week, Coinbase Global's (Nasdaq: COIN) Chief Policy Officer, Faryar Shirzad, hasn't lost all hope.
The Coinbase crypto exchange aggressively pushed for the CLARITY Act, but the legislation is not advancing for now.
Related: Coinbase CEO says crypto can’t wait on Congress after CLARITY vote fails
On Sep. 18, Shirzad appeared for an interview on Bitcoin Magazine in which he shed light on why the crucial legislation failed to advance.
First, the big banks were strongly opposed to the bill. Second, the Democrats didn't want to upset their voters ahead of the elections who have come to associate crypto with President Donald Trump, he explained.
He also underlined the positive pro-crypto moves recently made by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Faryar Shirzad, Chief Policy Officer, Coinbase speaks onstage during the Semafor World Economy Summit Fall Edition at Gallup HQ on October 16, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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After the SEC Chair Paul Atkins made clear the regulator would continue its crypto rulemaking agenda regardless of what happened in Congress, the agency introduced its five-year “Innovation Exemption,” creating a pathway for qualifying platforms to trade tokenized U.S. stocks onchain.
The CFTC also issued a no-action position for certain software developers that connect users to regulated exchanges as long as they never hold user funds or make trading decisions on their behalf.
The crypto industry's job now is to promote adoption and make tokenization popular, Shirzad said.
The Coinbase policy officer also addressed the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services advancing the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 (H.R. 8957) in a 28-21 vote.
The bill would create a strategic Bitcoin reserve and a digital asset stockpile at the federal level, as per President Donald Trump's executive order signed in March last year. Trump's order mandated creating a reserve with Bitcoin forfeited by government agencies as part of asset seizures and asked the Treasury and Commerce Departments to develop budget-neutral strategies to acquire more Bitcoin.
The American Reserve Modernization Act would put a legislative stamp on Trump's order to create a Bitcoin reserve at the federal level.
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Coinbase Chief Policy Officer says the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve is "a priority both in terms of dialogue we have with the agencies" 👀"60-70 million Americans who own crypto, a huge part of that is Bitcoin...I feel really good about where we're going." pic.twitter.com/88XM9R4Xz0
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) September 18, 2026
When the host asked Shirzad if this bill has better prospects than the CLARITY Act, the Coinbase officer said he didn't know which bill had better chances.
But he revealed that the Bitcoin reserve is a priority in terms of the dialogue the company has with both the U.S. Treasury and the Commerce Departments.
U.S. government holdings, Source: Arkham IntelligenceAs per the onchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence, the U.S. government holds 324,527 Bitcoin worth $26.98 billion as of Sep. 18.
Related: Crypto snatches two Washington wins after CLARITY blow
