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Trump met Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong before criticizing banks over crypto bill

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Trump met Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong before criticizing banks over crypto bill

U.S. President Donald Trump and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong met behind closed doors shortly before the president said bankers are trying to undermine the GENIUS Act in a Truth Social post, CoinDesk confirmed.

“The U.S. needs to get Market Structure done, ASAP. Americans should earn more money on their money,” Trump said in the post on Tuesday. “The Banks are hitting record profits, and we are not going to allow them to undermine our powerful Crypto Agenda that will end up going to China, and other Countries if we don’t get The Clarity Act taken care of.”

Politico first reported the meeting between Armstrong and Trump. Afterward, the president publicly backed Coinbase’s “position in [the] ongoing lobbying clash with banks that has derailed a major cryptocurrency bill.”

The news outlet cited “two people with knowledge of the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss a closed-door matter” as the source of the meeting between Trump and Armstrong. It also said it was unclear what they both discussed during the meeting.

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However, it reiterated, “it came just before Trump wrote on social media that banks ‘need to make a good deal with the Crypto Industry’ in order to advance digital asset legislation that has stalled on Capitol Hill.”

The White House and Coinbase have not responded to a CoinDesk request for comment.

The market structure bill has been stalled since the Senate Banking Committee lawmakers were set to debate and vote on it. The point holding back the passage of the crypto bill is that banks argue stablecoin interest rates could affect bank deposits and therefore, particularly, their lending ability. Crypto exchanges say individuals should be able to earn rewards on their stablecoins holdings, which they say the GENIUS Act allows.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Tuesday said that stablecoin issuers that pay interest on customer balances should be regulated like banks. Patrick Witt, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, pushed back against Dimon, saying “the deceit here is that it is not the paying of yield on a balance per se that necessitates bank-like regulations, but rather the lending out or rehypothecation of the dollars that make up the underlying balance.” Witt also said the GENIUS Act “explicitly forbids stablecoin issuers from doing the latter. Stablecoins ≠ Deposits.”

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Crypto-related stocks, including COIN, jumped Wednesday amid a broader surge in crypto prices. COIN climbed above $200, seeing its highest price since late January.

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Crypto World

Bitcoin Drops to $74K as US-Iran Tensions Flare

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Bitcoin Drops to $74K as US-Iran Tensions Flare

Bitcoin erased its weekend gains as it fell below $74,000 on Sunday after the US military seized an Iranian cargo ship, putting pressure on a ceasefire between the two countries. 

Bitcoin (BTC) had soared above $78,300 late Friday on Coinbase, its highest price since early February, but dropped to between $75,000 and $76,000 over the weekend after Iran said it would close vital oil routes in the Strait of Hormuz.

The cryptocurrency then sank sharply late on Sunday to briefly trade below $74,000 after the US military said it opened fire on, and later seized, an Iranian cargo ship it claimed tried to run its blockade of Iranian ports, with Tehran accusing the US of violating an agreed ceasefire. 

The two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran, which had helped boost the markets and temper oil prices, is set to end on Wednesday.

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Bitcoin’s price in US dollars on Coinbase over the last five days has fallen over the weekend amid rising tensions between the US and Iran. Source: TradingView

Tehran has vowed to retaliate over the US military’s seizure of the ship and has rejected a new round of peace talks slated for Monday in Islamabad, Pakistan, due to the US blockade, Iranian state media reported.

Related: Bitcoin eyes $90K as whales absorb 20x daily BTC supply in 30 days

US stock futures sank Sunday night amid rising tensions, with S&P 500 futures dropping 0.8%, Nasdaq-100 futures falling 0.6% and Dow Jones futures declining 0.9%, or about 450 points.

Oil futures also soared amid the hostilities and Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, with crude oil futures rising over 4.5% to over $95 a barrel.

The Crypto Fear & Greed index rose by two points to a score of 29 out of 100 on Monday, its highest score since late January, but which still indicated a sentiment of “fear.”

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