CZ and Armstrong say crypto moves ahead without the CLARITY Act

A day after the Senate declined to advance the CLARITY Act, the two best-known exchange founders gave nearly the same answer: the industry keeps going.

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao said the bill's failure would not stop crypto development, Coinpedia reported on September 16. Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong was more openly frustrated. He called the result disappointing, then argued that the SEC and the CFTC already have the authority to write clearer rules without waiting for Congress. He also pointed to the GENIUS Act as proof that a federal framework for stablecoins is already in place.

The matching tone is the story. Neither executive treated the vote as a defeat that changes strategy. Both described it as a delay and turned attention to the agencies, where rulemaking was already under way. For companies that spent years asking Congress for a statute, that is a shift in emphasis. The near-term goal is workable regulation, with legislation as something to return to later.

It also raises the stakes for what the regulators produce. If the SEC and CFTC rules arrive slowly, or leave the largest questions open, the confidence both men expressed will be harder to sustain. Those rulemakings are now the measure of whether they were right.