MONETARY BLOW-UP: Coinbase FIRES BACK at Jamie Dimon's crypto criticism

Welcome back. Coinbase entering a pivotal moment within the company. Longtime chief legal officer Paul Grewal stepping down from his position, paving the way for Ryan Van Graak to step in as the new vice chairman of the company. Coinbase looking to strengthen its influence on crypto legislation as lawmakers are expected to release a new draft of the Clarity Act when they return to Capitol Hill next week. Cynthia Lummis joining us recently telling us she's expecting it to get to the floor in the Senate in July. The new deadline is now August 7th. Joining me now is newly appointed vice chairman of Coinbase Ryan Van Graak. Ryan, great to have you. Congratulations to you. Thanks so much. Great to be here and excited to talk about all of these new changes happening at Coinbase. Yeah, I want to talk about the legislation and how the Clarity Act may affect things. But first, let me start on crypto because cryptocurrency market conditions obviously have weakened and there's total market capitalization failing to just over two trillion on June 25th. That was down 50 percent from late 2025. The severity of this decline has some people questioning the impact on Coinbase. How do you see it? Well, it's important not to lose the forest for the trees, because if you go one layer deeper, all of the trend lines are positive. You have broad institutional adoptions happening all of the time. Coinbase continues to form important partnerships with major financial institutions. You see innovation continuing to accelerate at a pace never before seen across the industry. And you see legislative and regulatory developments all helping create the scaffolding that's going to turbo charge Coinbase and the industry more broadly. Yeah. And I want to talk about that legislation. But you've had massive success in terms of moving into new businesses. I mentioned earlier the everything exchange. You've moved into new businesses like stable coin, diversifying revenue. Tell us about the priorities at Coinbase and what leads growth at the company in the coming years. Absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head, Maria, that everything exchange is critical. So one stop shop for finance. And that's because what drives us is our customers and responding to their needs. On our exchange, you can trade stocks, crypto, commodity futures, options, prediction markets, perpetuals. We even have an A.I. based registered advisor. If a customer needs or wants it, we either have it or are working hard to development. And part of the key there, Maria, is this inevitable convergence between traditional finance and crypto. Ten years from now, we're not going to be talking about those two different universes. We're going to be talking about modern financial institutions and everything that Coinbase is doing to aggregate and assemble these products on one app is exactly what our customers want. And it is the direction of travel and finance. Yeah, I think you are analyzing this right on. But, you know, the strength of your franchise and the, I guess, depth of it has other financial services companies questioning it because you're not under the same framework in terms of regulation. Right. I mean, I spoke with JP Morgan, Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, and he's worried about the current rules in the Clarity Act and that eventually it's going to blow up the entire monetary system because he's talking about the potential for money to be on the platform, crypto platforms, Coinbase included. And in fact, you're not FDIC insured. He told me exactly how he feels about Coinbase, the industry and Brian Armstrong just last month. Watch this. So are you happy with the way the Clarity Act is turning out? No. No, because it allows them to effectively pay interest on deposits, stable coins or something like that, without the protection that they should have. And it doesn't do anything for AMLBSA. It has almost no legal protections. So, no, the banks will not accept it that way. And the ABA, the small banks, the credit unions, it's not just the big guys. I'm not worried about stable coin, but if it happened, I'm telling you, I would have nothing to do with it and it would eventually blow up on its own. OK, but that's my personal thing. But I do understand the concern of all the other banks. Well, the markup is coming. I mean, what are you going to do about it? It is. We'll fight it. If we lose, we lose and we'll live. But it will be fought. This will not be. No, no one's going to bow down to this guy or that company. He's the only one. And he's spending hundreds of millions of dollars in Washington, this thing. He said he's he's representing the whole. Well, he's talking about your CEO, Brian Armstrong. Ryan, what is your response? I can tell you this. There is no company that has worked harder and fought longer to get regulation in crypto than Brian Armstrong and Coinbase. We fought so hard. We actually sued the SEC in order to push them to create rules and regulation for the space. And I could tell you firsthand as a former senior regulator at the SEC, we believe and we embrace the importance of regulation because regulation and clarity in this space is going to protect investors. It's going to foster innovation and it's going to allow the U.S. to lead in this space. And so I'm greatly encouraged by what we are seeing with the Clarity Act, because it has that vision in mind. It has customer protections in mind. And maybe even more importantly, it is a bipartisan effort, because what we are seeing on the ground is a concerted group of Democratic and Republican senators working around the clock to get this across the finish line. Yeah, no, I agree with that. But at the same time, the regulation is not equal. Right. I mean, if you're going to be and if you're going to sound like a bank, walk like a bank, should you be regulated like a bank, like FDIC regulated? Should you be following the same rules that the major banks follow? Well, I think it's a fiction to believe that institutions and rules that were promulgated nearly 100 years ago are well tailored and suited to the technology of today. Twenty first century financial system cannot and should be running on 20th century rails. And that's why we embrace the technology. But we also embrace the need for regulation. You want to have tailored rules and regulations that appreciate and embrace what the innovation provides and put that within the scaffolding of our commodities and securities laws. And we have deep experts at those two commissions, the SEC and the CFTC. And we've got thoughtful leaders at the Hill that are navigating these rules. It's not about less regulation. It's about regulation in the first place. For too long, this industry has operated without the full suite of the regulatory scaffolding and customer protections because there has been resistance by incumbents and others to embrace this technology. But the trend lines, the momentum are all positive. And at the end of the day, even institutions that may have had resistance to crypto and the technology are embracing it. They're partnering with Coinbase because they recognize what Brian Armstrong and Coinbase did over a decade ago, that it is simply a question of when, not if, the broader financial institutions adopt crypto technology. Well, let's look at crypto this morning. Bitcoin topping 64,000. Some analysts expect a price breakout to 67,000. But look, we know that coin is reliant on crypto volumes and crypto volumes have been have been weakening. The crypto market has been in bearish territory over the last couple of months. But I want to get your take on what changes with the Clarity Act, because you're talking about an increase in stablecoin revenue growth. You're talking about market share expectations to go higher for Coinbase and Circles stablecoin. That should benefit from regulatory changes. What changes do you expect once the Clarity Act becomes law? Well, first of all, and I like how you phrased it, Maria, when the Clarity Act becomes law, we're on the one yard line. The momentum is unmistakable and we're very optimistic about it becoming law. The changes we're going to see is with the Clarity Act passing, that's going to trigger not just stability and clarity within the space, but a whole suite of rules and regulations to follow. And the reason that's critical is because institutions and individuals, they embrace regulation. They want that certainty. And so those who may have been on the sidelines or those who may have only dipped their toe in the water, we expect all of that participation to accelerate once you have the regulatory scaffolding that we've long sought in this space. So what are you expecting in terms of crypto going forward? Give us Coinbase's biggest opportunities expanding beyond traditional crypto trading. You're the leading cryptocurrency exchange platform in the country, and we want to understand how that impacts people longer term. So how does this shake out? Yeah, Coinbase's view and vision is to become the future of finance. We obviously have been on the ground floor in embracing crypto, but through the Everything Exchange, as we discussed, it's not just about crypto. On our platform, you can do virtually anything that you can see on other brokerages and other financial institutions. And that is a change and an intentional change in order to become a one stop shop. And again, Maria, that's all about the convergence of the financial institutions to embrace this technology. And the fact that we were first and on the cutting edge of embracing technology leads to this inevitable convergence in our direction, because with developments like tokenization of real world assets, more and more of what has happened in traditional finance is going to happen on crypto rails. And Coinbase is perfectly poised to take advantage of those changes and opportunities. You received regulatory approval in the UK to offer derivative and equities trading to institutional and retail investors all on one platform, Ryan. That was a big deal. I know you're reporting your second quarter results in August. Can you give us a sense of what the road ahead looks like in terms of the opportunities? Is it all about the Everything Exchange? And what about prediction markets? What kind of regulatory changes would you expect there and what's the impact? Yeah, so the answer to your first part of your question is all of the above. The UK is a great example, but we don't think it's an isolated example. We are continuing to look in other jurisdictions in the U.S. itself to find ways to expand what we offer to our customers, because that's always where our focus lies. In terms of prediction markets, that is just another innovation that continues to be embraced in the U.S. And what I think is particularly encouraging is the narrative is the same, which is you are seeing the CFTC continue to promulgate rules and regulations and guidance in the space, because that's what consumers want and that's what the market needs in order to continue to flourish and grow. Now, the stock has been down along with volumes in crypto. To what would you attribute that? Stocks rise and fall. This is not the first time there have been dips in the crypto space. I think a lot of attention has been focused on what we have seen over the last six months to a year, which is the progression of the Clarity Act and the work by Chair Atkins and Chair Selig to continue to create, again, this regulatory scaffolding for clearer rules and regulations. And you can see this undercurrent in D.C. building as there is greater and greater clarity in the space. So I think it's where I started at the top of this conversation. I have never been more bullish about the prospects for Coinbase and for the industry writ large. Yeah, I mean, I don't like to read too much into stock market activity, right? I mean, the stock is down 30 percent year to date, but it is right in line with the fact that we've got the uncertainty over the Clarity Act. We've got uncertainty about trading around Bitcoin. So thanks for taking that on. I usually don't read too much into short term moves. Ryan, we'll be watching your work. Congratulations. Thanks for being here. Thanks. Appreciate the time. All right. Thank you so much, Ryan Van Grack. We'll be right back. You're watching Mornings with Maria live on Fox Business.