Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong speaks to CNBC on January 15, 2026, at the Russell Senate Office Building in the Capitol building in Washington, DC.
Annabelle Gordon Reuter
coinbase has partnered with financial services provider Moov to boost community banks and credit unions’ access to stablecoin features, including acceptance, payments, and real-time funding, ahead of next week’s key vote on crypto legislation in the U.S. Senate.
The partnership, shared exclusively with CNBC, comes just days before a key primary vote on the Senate floor to advance the Clarity Act. The bill, which has been languishing in the Senate for months, would create the first regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and other types of digital assets.
Coinbase and the rest of the crypto industry have been pushing hard for the bill to pass in the Senate. However, the transparency law has been met with opposition from banks. Banks have opposed rewards such as interest offered by crypto exchanges, warning that they could cause a flight of deposits from community banks and credit unions. A new partnership could help bridge the gap between community banks and cryptocurrencies.
Under the agreement, Coinbase will provide the digital asset infrastructure, and Moov will connect that infrastructure to the payment systems already used by financial institutions and their customers, providing stablecoin functionality and payment rails to community banks. According to a press release announcing the partnership, Moov already serves more than 1,000 community banks and credit unions across the United States, connecting them to card acquisition and issuance and real-time payment rails.
“Community banks and credit unions have been watching their customers use digital assets for years,” said Ryan Vangrak, vice chairman and head of corporate affairs at Coinbase. “Through our partnership with Moov, Coinbase is providing the regulated infrastructure needed to directly deliver these services, embedded directly into existing systems.”
“Corporate customers of community institutions are already being asked to accept stablecoins, and today they are going outside of institutions to do so,” said Wade Arnold, co-founder and CEO of Moov.
“We built this so that the answer comes from the major financial institutions instead. Merchants need acceptance and payments now. What comes next is something bigger: financing that doesn’t stop on weekends and holidays because the railroads don’t close. Financial institutions that add this now will be in a position to handle both.”
Moov counts Citizens Bank as one of its existing customers. Jill Castilla, chairman, president and CEO of Oklahoma-based Edmund Citizens Bank, said in a statement that the bank’s “small business customers are looking for ways to reduce interchange costs and get paid faster.”
Meanwhile, the fate of the transparency bill on the Senate floor remains uncertain. The bill would need at least 60 votes in the Senate to pass, but it’s unclear whether it has support at this point. Democrats have expressed concern about the proposed ethics language in the bill, arguing that it does not go far enough to prevent public officials from profiting from cryptocurrencies. Some Republican lawmakers are also wary of the bill’s potential impact on community banks.
The bill is scheduled for a preliminary vote next Tuesday.
