US President Donald Trump reportedly met with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong just hours before issuing a statement criticizing banks for holding a market structure bill “hostage.”
According to a Tuesday Politico report, Trump met privately with Armstrong after a group of Coinbase representatives went to the White House. The details of the reported meeting were unclear, but the president posted to his Truth Social channel afterwards, that “the US needs to get Market Structure done, ASAP.”
“The banks are hitting record profits, and we are not going to allow them to undermine our powerful Crypto Agenda […],” said Trump in his Tuesday post.
The reported meeting came more than a month after Armstrong said that Coinbase could not support the market structure bill “as written,” citing “draft amendments that would kill rewards on stablecoins, allowing banks to ban their competition.” Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott later postponed a markup on the legislation, which had not been rescheduled as of Wednesday.
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One of the divides between many crypto companies and banking associations on the market structure bill has been on how the legislation may address stablecoin rewards. Armstrong and others in the industry oppose a ban on stablecoin yield in the bill, and the White House has held three separate meetings with representatives from crypto and banking since the markup was postponed.
Cointelegraph’s requests for comment sent to Coinbase, the White House, and the American Banking Association had not received responses at the time of publication. Separately, Ji Hun Kim, CEO of the advocacy organization Crypto Council for Innovation, said in response to Trump’s Tuesday post:
“American leadership in digital assets is a national priority and it remains imperative that the US leads. CCI is focused on ensuring that market structure legislation passes and is enacted as soon as possible. We remain committed to working constructively on a path forward on stablecoin rewards.”
Coinbase maintains close ties to the administration
Although the White House has its own crypto advisers, Armstrong has been seen in the company of administration officials more than once since Trump won the 2024 election. The Coinbase CEO was reportedly invited to Inauguration Day events in January 2025 with other industry leaders. The exchange contributed to the “nonpartisan initiative” America250 that is behind a July 2025 military parade in Washington, DC.
Amid the negotiations in Congress over the market structure bill, Armstrong was a regular presence, sometimes giving interviews from the US Capitol. In February, the CEO spoke alongside Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno about the legislation at a crypto forum at Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago club hosted by World Liberty Financial, the company backed by the president and his sons.
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