Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong claims that the United States Securities and Substitution Commission is the only government branch that is unwilling to meet with the firm.

Speaking on Anthony Pompliano's Best Business concern Bear witness on Fri, Armstrong said that during his visit to Washington after Coinbase went public in April, the SEC was the "only regulator" that refused to meet with him:

"I reached out to the SEC. I tried to get a meeting with them. They told me that they weren't coming together with whatever crypto companies."

"I was kind of surprised by that considering there are and then many unlike regulators out there. Every unmarried 1 has been willing to meet with us and every other co-operative of government," he added.

Armstrong highlighted his house's issues with the SEC'southward approach before this month when he revealed the enforcement body had threatened to sue the firm if information technology launched its USD Coin (USDC) lending programme that offered iv% annual yields. Despite other firms already offering similar services, he said the SEC refused to give the light-green light every bit it deemed the program to exist a security simply provided no explanation on how it came to that conclusion.

During the interview with Pompliano, the Coinbase CEO noted that the SEC has non changed its tune since so, and he said it hadn't even placed a telephone call to the firm. Armstrong asked:

"How are they protecting consumers in this example? I think a lot of consumers demonstrably take wanted to earn higher yields on their savings accounts. They're not really getting those products from the existing fiscal services."

"So, that was i open question. And and then the second ane was, 'How are they creating a level playing field?'" he added.

Armstrong said Coinbase had considered taking the SEC to court but decided that it was not worth a lengthy legal battle, not least because "there's a lot of deference given to regulators in the court organisation."

The firm has now walked back its plans to launch the program and will instead sit on the sidelines until the regulatory landscape effectually crypto lending services become more transparent:

"We're going to wait and see what the SEC does in terms of the other products that are out there already in the marketplace where it's not a level playing field today."

"I think we want to also just focus our efforts on possibly even more than important things happening in crypto, like the questions around which of these tokens are securities and how is DeFi [decentralized finance] going to be used?" he added.

Related: Bitcoin bounces to $43K alee of fresh crypto comments from SEC Chair Gensler

Crypto goes to Washington

On the subject of how policymakers view crypto, Armstrong said at that place'southward a 50/50 split in Washington between people who think it'due south risky and people who encounter the opportunity the sector provides:

"You know, 50% of the people I talked to in D.C., roughly, they're still thinking of crypto equally a risk. They call up this is scary. This is unsafe. They have all kinds of misconceptions in their head about the percentage of activity that's for illicit activity."

"So, that's probably half the people I encounter in D.C., and the other half, they realize that this is actually a huge opportunity," he added.

Armstrong as well appeared at the TechCrunch Disrupt briefing on Wednesday and revealed that Coinbase is preparing a draft regulatory framework that it will put forward to U.S. lawmakers next month. The firm is hoping to be an "advisor" that can advocate for "sensible regulation," with Armstrong noting that regulators have asked the firm multiple times for a crypto proposal.