On May 25, 2026, Coinbase’s Head of European Policy, Katie Harries, publicly discussed Wall Street institutions increasing their involvement. She emphasized that she is “not worried” about traditional finance enhancing participation, while shifting the focus entirely to the regulatory level — in her view, the true ace in the crypto industry is not any single product, but the community foundation and the emerging power of the “crypto voters” that are hard for traditional finance to replicate. Therefore, the urgent task is to build a coordinating and reasonable regulatory framework for this force. Surrounding this framework, Coinbase is no longer relying solely on corporate public relations, but is turning community sentiment into measurable political pressure through advocacy organizations like Stand With Crypto: according to a single source, the organization claims to have over 3.7 million members, who have cumulatively contacted legislators over 2.5 million times, shaping “users” into a long-term political force in the regulatory tug-of-war. Almost simultaneously with community mobilization, the Federal Reserve also revealed its own chips—updating the proposal for streamlining master accounts, systematically designing access rules for master accounts and payment channels for non-OCC-chartered fintech and crypto companies for the first time. This means that the central bank payment system, traditionally open only to traditional licensed institutions like banks, is discussing whether and how to conditionally open its doors to new players. Standing at this slowly opening regulatory window, Coinbase’s management declared on one hand, “welcome clear rules and bet on compliant innovation,” while also taking action to tell the market: as rules begin to be inscribed in texts, whether Wall Street takes faster advantage of existing licenses and risk management traditions to occupy new tracks, or whether native crypto platforms leverage community foundations and new structures to solidify compliance advantages into moats, will become the main axis of contention in the coming years.

The Political Chips of Community Mobilization in Congress

While the threshold is still controlled by regulators, Coinbase has reached out for votes with the other hand. Supported by Coinbase, Stand With Crypto is designed as a machine that converts users into long-term political pressure: according to a single source, the organization claims to have over 3.7 million members, who have cumulatively made over 2.5 million contacts with various levels of legislators, packaging sentiment originally scattered across trading platforms and social media into “crypto policy demands,” labeled as “crypto voters” and sent to congressional offices. Katie Harries emphasized in public comments that cryptocurrency voters have become a long-term force in the global political landscape. The aim of this narrative is not only to advocate for a few specific bills but to ensure that legislators recognize they are being accounted for by a community claiming to consist of millions during every vote and every hearing agenda ranking.

In terms of regulatory cadence and content, the constraints of such community mobilization lean more toward the medium to long term: advocacy organizations like Stand With Crypto are attempting to write “reasonable regulation” into the agenda itself through continuous outreach, transforming legislators’ positions on crypto from a technical issue into a political stance monitored by voters. While it may not directly determine the outcome of any particular vote, it continuously raises the political cost of a “hardline approach,” while providing public opinion cover for lawmakers seeking compromise. However, currently, all statements regarding member scales, contact frequencies, and “crypto voters as a global phenomenon” mainly stem from a single source and lack independent verification, making it challenging for external observers to accurately judge this group's actual voting power. For the industry, a more certain change lies in path demonstration: when a compliant platform organizes users through advocacy organizations into quantifiable, deployable political resources, other platforms and projects will also be prompted to consider how to replicate the chain of “community-voter-legislative agenda,” and the power structure at future regulatory negotiation tables will consequently be redefined.

Wall Street’s Increased Crypto Involvement and Coinbase’s Confidence

As crypto “voters” are organized into quantifiable political resources, Wall Street has quietly entered the field along a different path. Over the past few years, traditional financial institutions have relied more on existing bank licenses and securities regulatory frameworks to penetrate the crypto market through custody, ETFs, brokerage, and other product forms, wrapping on-chain assets in familiar financial garments and emphasizing in compliance discourse that they are “just extensions of existing business.” This approach bypasses direct competition with native platforms in the battles for spot trading, yet poses substantial pressure on platforms like Coinbase in terms of institutional custody, product distribution, and brokerage services: once regulators prefer to contain risks within familiar licensed frameworks, capital and regulatory attention may shift naturally toward Wall Street.

Katie Harries publicly stated on May 25, 2026, that she is not worried about traditional financial institutions increasing their involvement, reasoning that the crypto industry possesses a community foundation that is difficult to replicate. For Coinbase, this “community foundation” is not merely emotional endorsement; it has already been transformed into visible assets in terms of license applications, compliance costs, and user trust: on one hand, Coinbase has acquired licenses in multiple jurisdictions and has engaged in long-term communication with U.S. and European regulators to secure a relatively clear path for compliance, allowing it to continue extending from a single trading platform to custody, on-chain infrastructure, and developer tools under the incomplete U.S. regulatory framework; on the other hand, the vast user and community network has been mobilized through advocacy organizations like Stand With Crypto, distributing compliance investments across a larger business scale and a more solid brand trust. In contrast, Wall Street institutions, still navigating the uncertain regulatory environment where the SEC, CFTC, and Congress are coordinating boundaries, tend to issue limited-range crypto-related products within existing bank and securities rules, opting for lower risk preferences in exchange for predictable regulatory outcomes, while native platforms like Coinbase attempt to leverage community and policy negotiation spaces to push for the implementation of clearer, innovation-friendly rules. This difference will, when the future regulatory landscape is ultimately settled, translate into who can dominate the crypto financial infrastructure layer.

Compliance Gaps in the Federal Reserve's New Master Account Proposal

Against the backdrop of sluggish federal legislation and ambiguous regulatory boundaries, the Federal Reserve's updated streamlining master account proposal has become a rare draft of basic infrastructure rules directly targeting crypto-related institutions. The master account itself is the core access point for institutions into the Federal Reserve’s payment system, historically open only to traditional licensed entities like banks. Previously, crypto companies could only find workarounds by collaborating with banks, using the banks’ master accounts as a “backdoor” access, with terms, limits, and even account continuity tied to the partner bank’s risk preferences. The new proposal attempts to create a clearer set of application and review standards for non-OCC-chartered fintech and crypto companies, shifting from “generally not allowed” to “can be discussed under strict conditions,” ripping open a compliance gap that can be utilized yet comes with stringent conditions in the previously closed payment hub.

This gap directly redraws the regulatory hierarchy and competitive starting points between banks and native crypto platforms regarding payment infrastructure. For Wall Street, having a master account or easily obtaining one through affiliated institutions is a natural advantage; under the new rule framework, they only need to expand crypto-related business within the existing compliance system to package on-chain assets into existing payment and settlement pipelines. For native institutions like Coinbase, which are transitioning from a single trading platform to a financial infrastructure provider, there are two paths: either striving for a direct master account application in jurisdictions that meet conditions, using their accumulated licenses and regulatory communication records to align with the Federal Reserve’s new standards; or continuing to rely on bank partnerships, but pressing the partner banks to lower additional risk control and pricing related to crypto business by adopting a “compliance co-construction” stance. The proposal is still in a phase of uncertainty before public solicitation and formal rule-making, while Coinbase’s management, on one hand, shapes the “crypto voter” agenda through community mobilization tools like Stand With Crypto, and on the other, uses Armstrong's “eight upgrades” to sell the public value of on-chain infrastructure to regulators. The true point of contention has quietly shifted from “can we access the Federal Reserve system” to “who can be the first to successfully navigate this newly opened compliance channel and turn it into their own infrastructure moat.”

Armstrong's List of Regulatory-Friendly Upgrades

When the Federal Reserve launched the streamlined master account proposal, opening a “conditioned access” channel for non-traditional licensed institutions, Brian Armstrong released a list of “eight upgrades” for the financial system on X, directly incorporating crypto and on-chain infrastructure into the future financial architecture: tokenization of real-world assets, 24/7 global trading, next-generation payment systems, AI-driven risk management, and an “innovation-friendly regulatory framework” supporting all of this have been listed as a systematic project. The cleverness of the narrative lies in the fact that he does not present these functionalities as a new round of speculative platforms, but deliberately describes tokenization, on-chain settlement, and AI risk management as public infrastructure aiming to reduce settlement risks, minimize operational errors, and enhance transparency, transforming regulators’ concerns about “systemic risks” into a demand list for on-chain innovation.

Behind this list is a rewriting of Coinbase’s role. In recent years, it has been acquiring licenses in various regions while extending from a sole transaction platform to custody, on-chain infrastructure, payment, and developer tools, attempting to position itself as a “financial infrastructure provider” rather than merely an asset trading venue. This transformation heavily relies on innovation-friendly regulation—only under the premise that regulators recognize compliant access to master accounts and payment channels, and allow on-chain infrastructure to operate under clear rules, can these new businesses truly become the underlying facilities shared by Wall Street and native crypto institutions. The message Armstrong sends to regulators through the public list is straightforward: if crypto, tokenization, and AI risk management are incorporated into the rules, they can be used to reinforce rather than disrupt the existing financial order, and whether regulators accept this premise will determine who qualifies for dominance in the new generation of financial infrastructure.

The Regulatory Window Has Opened, Who Can Get the Ticket?

In the current context of lacking unified federal legislation and undecided regulatory boundaries between the SEC and CFTC, the manner in which the regulatory window is pushed open itself is being pulled by the forces of community mobilization, the Federal Reserve’s infrastructure openness attempts, and platform narratives. Stand With Crypto wraps millions of members and millions of contacts with lawmakers into the “crypto voter” story, the Federal Reserve releases a limited openness signal for non-traditional licensed institutions through the streamlined master account proposal at the draft rule level, while Coinbase emphasizes itself as a provider capable of serving Wall Street without losing community foundations, using multi-regional licensing and regulatory connections alongside Armstrong’s “eight upgrades” list and Katie Harries’s public statements. While there is still room for adjustment regarding legislation and master account rules, Coinbase is pursuing a high-intensity licensing path combined with regulatory lobbying, whereas Wall Street institutions often rely on familiar façades such as custody, ETFs, and brokerage to advance within existing frameworks. Other platforms are forced to choose between radical innovation and preemptively aligning with future rules. Moving forward, whether U.S. federal crypto legislation can make substantial progress within the election cycle, how the Federal Reserve’s final rules will define non-bank access conditions, and whether the “crypto voter” narrative translates into visible votes during actual ballots will collectively decide who gets the compliance ticket to the next generation of financial infrastructure.

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