Senator Ted Cruz, a supporter of the cryptocurrency community, stated that the bill contained “dangerous provisions that would devastate crypto and blockchain innovation.”
The cryptocurrency community in the United States has spent the last week battling Congress over a provision in the proposed Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that defines “brokers” in the cryptocurrency industry as “any person who is regularly responsible for providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person.” Due to partisan disagreements over spending, Democrats objected to ALL additional amendments. That means NO vote on Wyden-Lummis to mitigate the bill’s negative impact on crypto and NO vote on the Cruz amendment.
He made the comment in a Twitter thread in which he also expressed support for an amendment proposed by Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore), Pat Toomey (R-Pa), and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo) that modified the reporting requirements to make them more industry-friendly, while also announcing his own proposed amendment that would eliminate the provision entirely from the bipartisan bill.
“Crypto got screwed tonight. There’s a partisan disagreement on spending, so Dems objected to ALL further amendments. That means NO vote on Wyden-Lummis to lessen the damage this bill will do to crypto, & NO vote on the Cruz amd. to repeal the new crypto rules altogether.”
Similarly, Twitter CEO and long-time Bitcoin proponent Jack Dorsey have proposed a “workable simplification” to Senators and their staff in a thread on the microblogging platform, thanking them for their efforts thus far. Dorsey notes that the bill in its current form, as amended by the Warner-Portman-Sinema amendment, which imposes tax reporting requirements on software and hardware developers, miners, and node operators, “is an impossible task that will only drive development and operation of this critical technology outside the United States.”
Dorsey continues by claiming that the simplification will benefit at least 90% of the industry that is directly involved in dealing with tax-paying customers. The remaining 10% of “edge cases” that are not covered by the simplified definition can then be debated properly at a later date.
The bill’s vote and hearing have already taken place. The cryptocurrency community has been anticipating the outcome of yesterday’s and today’s proceedings. Meanwhile, the community has banded together to attempt to influence the outcome through any means possible.
Prominent cryptocurrency advocates such as Jake Chervinsky and Neeraj K. Agrawal have been at the forefront of the lobbying efforts. Chervinsky, who serves as general counsel for Compound Labs, Inc. – a financial technology company specializing in the development of decentralized protocols for autonomous interest rate markets on the Ethereum blockchain – was one of the first to express concern about the bill. He urged concerned US citizens to contact their representatives and urge them to support the Toomey-Wyden-Lummis proposed amendment.
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