CLARITY Act setback shifts focus to Coinbase amid crypto policy debate

After more than two years of lobbying for clearer rules in Washington, crypto policy took another hit this week. The U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act on Tuesday, missing the 60 votes required to move the bill to the floor—an outcome that compresses an already tight legislative window ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

Strategists highlighted that the fallout may not be evenly distributed across the sector. In parallel, Wall Street research is making bold calls on layer-2 networks and staking yields, while industry executives are warning that artificial intelligence may be weakening crypto liquidity and increasing the security burden for smaller teams.

Key takeaways

• The Senate’s procedural failure to advance the CLARITY Act narrows the bill’s remaining path this year as election-season timing tightens.
• Saxo strategist Ruben Dalfovo argues Coinbase is more directly exposed than some peers because market-structure rules could affect registration, tradable assets, and platform participation.
• Standard Chartered expects Arbitrum to outperform other large crypto networks through 2030, attributing part of that view to evolving economics from major builders.
• Bitmine’s treasury strategy targets staking revenue from a large Ether position, projecting annualized income based on current staking rates.
• Phemex’s CEO says AI is becoming a “net negative” for crypto by pulling liquidity away and enabling attackers, raising security costs.

CLARITY Act stalls as Senate misses the procedural threshold

The CLARITY Act’s failure to clear the Senate procedural vote is a significant setback for the industry’s push for regulatory clarity. According to Cointelegraph’s report on the vote outcome, the bill did not reach the 60-vote threshold needed to bring it to the floor for debate.

Because the Senate calendar tightens ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, the missed procedural step reduces the likelihood that the bill can be fully processed this year. For market participants, the immediate implication is that uncertainty around the timing and shape of potential federal rules may persist longer than many in crypto had hoped.

Why Coinbase could feel the setback more than others

Saxo Bank strategist Ruben Dalfovo argued in a note following the vote that Coinbase is among the most exposed names. As Cointelegraph reported in coverage of his view, Dalfovo said Coinbase’s trading business is directly tied to U.S. market-structure rules—meaning new requirements could influence registration obligations, the set of assets that can be traded, and who is permitted to participate on the platform.

Dalfovo’s comparison matters for investors because it distinguishes between forms of exposure. Cointelegraph noted that he viewed some other crypto-linked companies as less directly affected by market-structure rules, with their key sensitivities tied to different variables—for example, Circle’s exposure connected to USDC adoption and reserve-related economics, and Strategy’s emphasis on its Bitcoin holdings and related access to financing.

The market reaction described by Cointelegraph reflected this differentiation. Shares of Coinbase, Circle, and Strategy reportedly fell between 5% and 10% after the vote and remained lower the next day, indicating traders were repricing the near-term legislative probability and its potential effect on business models.

Standard Chartered doubles down on Arbitrum’s long-run upside

While U.S. regulatory timelines remain uncertain, analysts are looking to onchain infrastructure for a different kind of catalyst. Standard Chartered, in research highlighted by Cointelegraph, is projecting that Arbitrum could outperform Bitcoin and Ether through 2030.

The bank’s thesis, as summarized by Cointelegraph, centers on network economics. Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, pointed to a revenue-sharing structure in which Arbitrum receives 10% of net protocol revenue from companies building on it. He also cited Robinhood Chain—launched in July—as a meaningful change to Arbitrum’s economics, with September revenue expected to reach $5 million, described as more than five times the prior level.

Standard Chartered’s base-case projection is ARB at $10 by 2030, which it frames as a roughly 70-fold increase from current levels around $0.14. Cointelegraph also noted that ARB had gained 86% over the prior month at the time of the report.

Investors should treat such projections as scenario-based rather than guarantees. Standard Chartered’s assumptions, according to Cointelegraph, depend on broader adoption—tokenized assets reaching $39 billion and forecasts of $4 trillion by 2028. The core uncertainty remains whether the pace of financial and institutional migration to tokenized onchain products can match these expectations, and whether Arbitrum’s revenue share meaningfully compounds as new builders launch and scale.

Bitmine’s Ether treasury turns staking into a recurring revenue bet

Another angle on the crypto business cycle is coming from balance-sheet strategy rather than regulation: Bitmine is positioning its treasury to earn recurring income through staking. Cointelegraph reported that the company projects $334 million in annualized staking revenue from its Ether holdings.

As described in the report, Bitmine said it added 27,180 ETH last week, bringing total holdings to 5.95 million ETH valued at $15.4 billion. The company claims that more than 5.06 million ETH is now staked, generating an estimated $334 million in annualized revenue at current rates.

Cointelegraph also contextualized the scale by noting that Bitmine’s staked amount represents roughly 4.9% of Ether’s circulating supply. The comparison to other treasury strategies is important: staking allows recurring income from crypto holdings, which can differ from treasury approaches focused on appreciation without an income stream.

Cointelegraph added that Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF stakes 84.6% of its Ether, citing details on the fund’s webpage. The implication for readers is that staking-linked income models may increasingly be evaluated alongside pure exposure to price movements—particularly when volatility pushes investors to ask how returns are generated.

Phemex CEO warns AI is worsening crypto security and liquidity

The business side of crypto is also grappling with technology that cuts both ways. Federico Variola, CEO of Phemex, told Cointelegraph that AI has been a “net negative” for crypto—draining liquidity while empowering attackers to find and exploit weaknesses in protocols.

In Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction discussion, Variola argued that AI has “empowered a lot of bad actors” and driven up cybersecurity costs, especially for smaller teams that may lack the resources to keep pace. He referenced an incident from July in which attackers drained roughly $116 million in Bitcoin from more than 5,200 addresses associated with a Coldcard hardware wallet flaw that has been widely believed to have been discovered through malicious AI use.

The CEO also highlighted a broader capacity gap: Cointelegraph reported that Coinkite CEO Rodolfo Novak warned AI-assisted code review can now outpace seasoned experts. Variola’s concern extends to user behavior as well—he suggested the scale of AI-enabled risk could make self-custody and DeFi less attractive to retail users, potentially pushing the ecosystem toward greater centralization.

Not all views are purely negative. Cointelegraph included a response from CertiK’s Natalie Newson, who suggested AI can also function as “one of the biggest defenses.” For readers, the practical takeaway is that AI’s impact is likely to be dual: it can accelerate both offensive tooling and defensive monitoring, raising the stakes for security engineering across exchanges, custodians, and protocols.

What to watch next is whether the CLARITY Act’s stalled momentum can be revived in the remaining Senate calendar, and—on the market side—whether onchain revenue narratives like Arbitrum’s can translate assumptions into measurable adoption and sustained network activity as policy uncertainty persists. Meanwhile, security teams should expect AI-driven threat modeling to become less optional and more foundational.