Will the Senate work together and pass a bipartisan crypto amendment to the infrastructure bill this holiday?
The dividing aisle within the U.S. House of Representatives can run right across the Thanksgiving dinner table, where our families can spitball mouthfuls of party politics before even biting into the Thanksgiving turkey. Yet this Thanksgiving, the conversation may, instead, be centered on crypto.
With crypto’s run up to three trillion dollars this year, and Bitcoin stealing the inflation narrative
away from gold, your family would be remiss not mention the latest Shiba Inu craze, or Doge father Elon Musk’s latest Crypto tweets.
So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, it was pleasant to see Senator Cynthia Lummis, (R-Wyoming) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) come together with a Bipartisan crypto amendment to correct the language as it pertains to cryptocurrency within the Infrastructure Bill signed into law this Monday.
If you recall back in late August, when the infrastructure Bill was first pushed through the Senate, Senator Shelby was the only holdout vote across the entire Senate body refusing to correct the damaging language toward crypto contained within the Bill.
In its current state, the bill would require miners and crypto wallets holders to uphold the same KYC (Know Your Customer) regulations that exchanges must adhere to. This clearly is unfair, as everyday crypto wallet holders who send cryptocurrencies peer-to-peer, should not be responsible to collect identification on every person they receive or send crypto to.
Imagine if every time you gave a merchant a dollar (or any individual), you were also forced to get a copy of their driver’s license. This analogy is what the new bill is akin to.
The miner’s face a similar challenge under the new Bill. As they are in the business of mining, not running an exchange and creating a marketplace for trading or being crypto custodies. They are more like merchants who sell goods to interested buyers.
Jeff Benson from DeCrypt reports:
“The Wyden/Lummis bill would revise the definition of digital asset brokers to exclude cryptocurrency miners, stakers, wallet providers, and blockchain software developers, so that they would not be responsible for filing customer data to the Internal Revenue Service.”
So, while we have become accustomed to our political leaders standing with their backs turned toward one another. This Thanksgiving, we have a Bipartisan Crypto Amendment for congress to now pass. Even the infrastructure bill itself passed with the support of both Democrats and Republicans. The final senate vote came in at 69-30.
And if cryptocurrency gives our leadership reason to work together to support bipartisan causes, then let’s be thankful to crypto as well, because frankly… I think the nation has grown tired of party politics and would much rather spend Thanksgiving yammering about the yams and crypto, rather than stolen elections and cable news distortions.
