Crypto Lobbying Wins Infrastructure Bill Amendment: Blow To Industry Avoided?

The cryptocurrency industry's lobbying efforts apparently paid off as a bipartisan group of Senators pitched an amendment meant to appease crypto proponent's concerns over the possible consequences of the vague wording contained in the infrastructure bill.

What Happened: According to a Wednesday Bloomberg report, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden and Republican Senators Pat Toomey and Cynthia Lummis' amendment extends the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reporting requirements only to "those persons who conduct transactions on exchanges where consumers buy, sell and trade digital assets.

"Such wording would surely exclude miners, stakers, software developers, or wallet providers from falling into the IRS reporting requirements.

The original wording of the infrastructure bill imposed the IRS reporting requirements on all brokers and described brokers as "any person who -- for consideration -- is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person.”

In this form, the bill could potentially deem wallet providers, miners, and developers to be brokers and require them to report data to which they often do not even have access.

DeFi Chair at Blockchain Association and lawyer Jake Chervinsky said that "it defies logic to adopt a regulation for which compliance is literally impossible 

Read also: Crypto Community Is Concerned New Regulation Will Choke The Industry In The U.S.

The amendment now reportedly needs to accumulate at least 60 votes in the Senate in order to move forward. Lummis described the change as a "responsible step" in incorporating the crypto industry in traditional finance without stifling innovation. She highlighted the importance of respecting the "privacy and non-government involvement in non-fiat currency" while allowing for innovation and intersecting it with traditional finance.