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A stalled crypto market structure bill and a high-profile pullback from Coinbase (COIN) aren’t slowing momentum for firms building around tokenized securities.
Hours after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the latest draft of the bill would amount to a “de facto ban” on tokenized equity offerings, the Senate Banking Committee canceled a scheduled markup session. A new date has yet to be scheduled.
But key representatives in the tokenization sector see a different picture than Coinbase's.
"The current draft does not kill tokenized equities," Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize told CoinDesk. It simply clarifies, he argued, that they’re still securities and must follow existing rules, a key step toward integrating blockchain into traditional markets.
He sees that the push-and-pull around the bill is a "typical and healthy" part of the legislative process.
"Market structure legislation of this significance takes time to get right, and what we’re seeing now is a bill that is actively taking shape," Domingo said. "We’re encouraged by the progress and hope the bill protects developers and innovation while maintaining market integrity."
Gabe Otte, co-founder and CEO of Dinari, a regulated U.S.-based provider of tokenized public securities, also disagreed with Coinbase's stance. "We don’t interpret the CLARITY draft as a 'de facto ban' on tokenized equities," he said.
"What it does do is reaffirm that tokenized equities remain securities and should operate within existing securities laws and investor protection standards," Otte said.
Superstate, the asset management and tokenization firm led by Compound founder Robert Leshner, echoed that view. Its general counsel, Alexander Zozos, told CoinDesk the bill’s real value was in helping resolve gray areas for crypto assets that aren’t clearly securities, not in regulating tokenized stocks or bonds. That's under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's umbrella.
"The SEC is already on the case" Zozos said, citing the agency's "Project Crypto" initiative under Chairman Paul Atkins, and "will continue to provide that clarity even absent further legislative directives."
The real "loser" from the delay, he argued, is clarifying "regulatory turf" for projects seeking to raise capital and for tokenized assets that aren’t clearly securities.
Will Beeson, CEO of Uniform Labs, a blockchain protocol that enables institutions to swap between tokenized money market funds and stablecoins, said that "even without immediate legislative resolution, the push toward regulated, liquid tokenized assets continues."
"Institutions care less about headlines and more about whether tokenized securities can be moved, redeemed and reused seamlessly within financial workflows," Beeson said.
This push is part of a broader bet that tokenization could reshape global finance. Industry estimates suggest that tokenized versions of real-world assets — everything from funds, bonds, equities and other assets — could reach multiple trillions of dollars over the next decade. Wall Street giants such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Fidelity have already launched or backed tokenized funds, seeing efficiency gains in settlement, liquidity and transparency as too significant to ignore.
That projected scale helps explain why tokenization firms are forging ahead regardless of the delay. Earlier Thursday, Citron Research argued that the reason Coinbase's opposition to the bill may not because it would harms investors, but because it could help licensed competitors.
"Legislation can influence the speed of the rollout," Superstate's Zozos said. “But it cannot change the direction of the tide.”
