Weekly Roundup feat. Gus Coldebella 05/15/26 (Clarity advances, Circle's Arc token) (EP.720)

Circle, the publicly traded stablecoin company, raised $222 million from Andreessen, BlackRock, Apollo, and Intercontinental Exchange in a transaction tied to a presale of its Arc blockchain token. The financing was not equity, and the hosts said the token is not on Circle’s capital stack; how it relates to the company’s equity remains unclear. That uncertainty makes comparisons with Overstock difficult. Issuing equity and tokens can create two cap tables and competing stakeholder groups, but a token could also help recruit participants to decentralized payments infrastructure, much as banks built the Visa network. One speaker speculated, without claiming knowledge of Circle’s plan, that a token issuance could put pressure on short sellers.

The Senate Banking Committee advanced the Clarity Act in a bipartisan vote, with Senators Alsobrooks and Gallego joining in favor. Gus Coldebella cautioned that their committee votes do not guarantee support on the Senate floor. The Senate Agriculture Committee had already advanced its companion bill on a party-line vote, so the two versions still need to be reconciled before a floor vote. The legislative path therefore involves more than securing committee approval, and the remaining steps must be completed before the end of the Congress.

Ethics language remains unresolved, and Coldebella said a compromise is necessary to attract enough Democratic support for cloture. He put the requirement at at least seven Democratic votes, while some estimates also allow for three Republican opponents. Proposals targeting the president and his family as crypto actors could complicate negotiations: they may be intended to secure Democratic votes but could also become a poison pill if they cost the bill presidential support. With Polymarket putting the odds of passage by year-end at 70%, Coldebella said he was taking the under, citing the ethics dispute and the legislative work still ahead.

Coldebella argued that the bill could let law enforcement, issuers, and developers operate above board in the United States. He also said opposing crypto is electorally unappealing, pointing to Fairshake’s spending capacity and the lack of response to Elizabeth Warren’s anti-crypto messaging. Even if Clarity passes, important questions would remain: SEC rulemaking would determine when issuers of ancillary assets can leave the bill’s disclosure requirements, while the treatment of on-chain securities and the disintermediation of securities transactions would still need to be addressed. Coldebella expects SEC and CFTC efforts already moving in that direction to accelerate whether or not the bill passes, with opportunities for the industry to comment.

Vault providers and curators also face uncertainty over whether they must register with the SEC, including as broker-dealers or investment advisers. The hosts discussed an SEC sandbox as a way for vault businesses to test their operations under oversight before determining whether and how registration should apply. The discussion framed that as a possible route to explore the business model, not as a settled answer to the registration question.

Elsewhere, Digital Asset Holdings, the company behind the Canton blockchain, was reportedly raising $300 million at a $2 billion valuation from a16z, though the deal was not confirmed as closed. MoonPay acquired trading-infrastructure company Don Labs, and Elliptic raised $120 million from Nasdaq, Deutsche Bank, and One Peak.