Coinbase Could Be Among the CLARITY Act’s Biggest Winners
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| By Beth Canova |
For most of the last decade, the most lucrative corner of crypto stayed off-limits to Americans.
The big trades happened on exchanges in Dubai, Malta and the Seychelles. Meanwhile, U.S. investors watched from the sidelines. Blocked by a regulatory standoff in Washington nobody could resolve.
That standoff is finally starting to break.
And the company walking through the open door is you may already own. Or at least have heard of.
And while retail traders fixate on Bitcoin’s (BTC, “B+”) price — down 26% on the year — this company is methodically assembling a single account for spot crypto, options and perpetual futures.
What Coinbase Is Actually Building
I am, of course, talking about Coinbase (COIN).
On June 12, CEO Brian Armstrong unveiled what the company calls its "Everything Exchange."1
The goal? For Coinbase to be your one-stop shop for crypto, stocks, prediction markets and futures. All on one platform, folded into one login process.
The centerpiece will be derivatives, specifically perpetual futures, or perps. These are futures contracts with no expiration date. They’re kept tethered to the underlying asset price by a small, periodic payment called a funding rate.
And they’re the single largest market in crypto trading. In 2025, perps represented roughly 78% of derivatives volume, per CryptoQuant.
This is no longer just a plan.
On July 21, Coinbase began to roll out U.S. perpetual-style futures to American customers,2 starting with nano-BTC and ETH contracts. It bought its way into options, too. In August 2025 it closed a $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit,3 the world's largest crypto options exchange.
For the first time, one U.S.-listed company can offer spot, futures, perps and options under one roof.
Why This Door Was Locked
Here is the part the headlines skip: Until now, perps lived offshore because of a turf war in Washington.
Two regulators claimed crypto: the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which oversees securities, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which oversees commodities and futures. Neither would cede ground, so U.S. venues stayed out of perps entirely.
The volume instead flowed to Binance, OKX and Bybit.
The break came from the CFTC itself. On May 29, 2026, it cleared Coinbase to route U.S. customers into global perps and options through Deribit by treating them as foreign futures. Coinbase's chief legal officer called it "a massive first for the industry."4
That relief is granted case by case. It can be narrowed or withdrawn. Which is where the legislation comes in.
The Bill That Decides How Wide It Opens
The CLARITY Act would end the turf war by statute. It defines most blockchain-native tokens as "digital commodities" under CFTC oversight, rather than securities under the SEC.
In plain terms, it turns temporary permission into permanent law.
The House passed it 294 to 134 in July 2025. The Senate Banking Committee advanced it 15 to 9 in May 2026. Then the momentum stalled.
A White House target to sign it by July 4 came and went with no Senate vote. Bipartisan talks over ethics rules and developer-liability language broke down for a while. So much so that prediction market Polymarket saw the odds of passage drop from 74% to just 39% over the past month.
This week changed the calculation slightly. Yesterday, Senate Republicans released updated language to close the ethics gap. That development alone was enough to push the probability up by 22% in just one day.
Still, the window is narrow.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wy) has committed to bring the bill to the floor before the August recess. But Majority Leader John Thune has not yet set aside floor time, and passage still needs about seven Democratic votes to clear the 60-vote threshold.
Lummis warns that if this Congress misses its moment, market-structure rules could slip to 2030. That may be a bit of an exaggeration. But if this window closes without CLARITY passing, it’s likely that the upcoming midterms will steal attention away at least until 2027.
Where COIN Stands Now
Coinbase currently has a market cap around $42 billion, down about 29% year-to-date.
It’s not hard to see why. Right now, COIN still trades largely as a Bitcoin proxy. That is the central risk.
Coinbase is building a derivatives empire into a downturn. As long as crypto stays weak, the volume that powers these new products stays thin.
The "Everything Exchange" only pays off if customers show up to trade.
Then, there’s the legislative risk on top of it. Its permanence rests on a 60-vote threshold and unresolved fights over ethics rules and decentralized finance.
Leaving the network of lending and trading apps that run without a bank in the middle.
That said, stronger tailwinds are on the horizon.
The broad crypto market is looking for a bottom. (See Juan Villaverde’s market update for the latest on that.) Already, on-chain data shows increased activity throughout the decentralized finance ecosystem. And Marija Matić told you on Monday that Big-Foot Crypto Investors Aren’t Waiting for Bitcoin to Bottom.
In short, the early warning signs of crypto’s recovery are starting to build. Once momentum builds, COIN stands to benefit alongside the broad market.
On the legislative side, CLARITY is still a priority for the Trump Administration through the rest of his term. And there is bipartisan support.
So, even if we miss the summer window, I do see a possibility CLARITY will continue to move through the legislative process in 2027.
The obstacle was never the technology. It was the law, and the law is finally moving.
Just not on anyone's schedule.
For investors who want exposure to the crypto market without the same volatility, that means Coinbase may fit your strategy. Particularly if you have a longer investment horizon.
It’s a regulated, exchange-listed name that’s building an on-shore derivatives market. That makes it one of the cleaner ways to watch this shift unfold.
Best,
Beth Canova
P.S. A major provision of the CLARITY Act outlines exactly what Coinbase can do with its stablecoins. More to the point, it limits how you can earn yield from those digital dollars on Coinbase's platform.
Hint: These yields will be rather tame.
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1https://news.bitcoin.com/coinbase-teases-next-phase-of-everything-exchange-for-crypto-stocks-perps/
2https://www.coinbase.com/blog/perpetual-futures-have-arrived-in-the-us
4https://thedefiant.io/news/regulation/cftc-approves-first-us-regulated-bitcoin-perpetual-futures
