If the US Congress passes the infrastructure bill, lower socioeconomic groups will be excluded from the blockchain industry.
US lawmakers are on the verge of destroying a massive opportunity for job creation and diversity in the blockchain technology industry if they do not amend infrastructure bill HR 3684, which would require blockchain developers to obtain broker status on US soil.
HR 3684 does not recognize the asset class’s taxonomy. Not every crypto asset qualifies as security; many are transactional tokens that serve as the consensus mechanism for distributed ledger technology. Requiring broker status for all blockchain developers demonstrates that US lawmakers have yet to grasp the complexity and breadth of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency use cases.
“The blockchain enables us to create a new decentralized economic system, fundamentally altering how people save and spend their assets and money,” Jane Thompson, a futurist and blockchain social impact leader, explained this,
“However, there is nothing inherently financial to blockchain and the functions and features of a digital asset should determine its classification. This is an ill-informed and short-sighted bill and will continue to lock excluded groups out of an economic system already steeped in privilege.”
Access to finance and new forms of the digital enterprise is becoming more democratized as a result of blockchain technology. Its low entry barrier has enabled people from all walks of life to participate in this growing decentralized digital economy.
HR 3684 is in direct conflict with existing fintech and traditional finance parameters. Why should blockchain developers be treated as brokers if they are not responsible for client assets? In the United States, neither quant developers nor standard developers working for online payment platforms such as Paypal are required to hold broker licenses.
Regulation is critical for consumer and economic protection, but this ill-informed attempt to create a legal framework for cryptocurrency will only send industry leaders of all stripes, businesses, and jobs overseas at a time when America desperately needs job creation.
The United States Senate has approved HR 3684, despite the absence of an amendment proposed earlier this week by six senators to clarify the bill’s crypto language. It will then be sent to the House of Representatives for final approval by Vice President Biden.
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