Coinbase asks Congress to regulate digital assets outside of the existing financial system and to create a special regulator for digital asset markets
Crypto trading platform asks Congress to create an oversight regime separate from existing market regulators Source: The Coinbase Blog .
Wall Street Journal
Context & Ripple Effects
Coinbase had earlier explored fitting into the securities framework through broker and trading-venue registration talks with the SEC. Its call for a dedicated regime marks a sharper policy position: crypto markets should be governed through a purpose-built structure rather than adapted to existing market oversight.
The request also foreshadows Coinbase's later effort to compel an SEC response to its rulemaking petition, escalating its demand for clearer crypto rules; the SEC ultimately maintained that existing securities law was sufficient.
First-order effects
Congress is asked to consider a separate supervisory model for digital-asset markets, giving Coinbase a public alternative to regulation through established financial-market agencies.
Coinbase shifts from seeking ways to operate within SEC registration pathways toward advocating for a new authority tailored to crypto markets.
Second-order effects
The SEC's role becomes the central policy fault line: a dedicated regulator would compete with the agency's later position that the existing securities regime governs crypto-asset securities.
Other crypto platforms gain a concrete lobbying choice between backing Coinbase's dedicated-regulator approach and accepting compliance under current market-regulator structures.
Third-order effects
If a separate regime gains traction, crypto-market access and compliance could be organized around a distinct regulatory gate, deepening the divide between dedicated crypto venues and conventional financial-market infrastructure.
The repeated conflict over who writes and enforces crypto rules points to regulation itself becoming a competitive differentiator for exchanges, not merely a compliance cost.
The trend: US crypto policy is evolving into a contest between extending existing securities oversight and building a dedicated market-regulation framework.
1/ Today, we launched @Coinbase's Digital Asset Policy Proposal: Safeguarding America's Financial Leadership (dApp). We've consulted with U.S. policymakers, crypto experts, and academics from across the country. You can find the most important points here https://blog.coinbase.co…
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The fact the US regulators rely on a 1946 Supreme Court decision about whether contracts to sell or manage citrus groves in Florida are securities to determine if digital assets are securities makes it pretty clear an updated regulatory regime is needed https://www.wsj.com/...
Hopefully this proposal is constructive and is a part of the solution. Here's an overview of the proposal from our Chief Policy Officer @faryarshirzad https://twitter.com/...
“The industry is currently dealing with an impenetrable array of regulators in the U.S.—an impossible patchwork for entrepreneurs” https://twitter.com/...