More than a few cryptocurrency enthusiasts are nervous about a new administration that often bills itself as “centrist,” and has sometimes set its sights on cryptocurrency as an outlier in today’s economy.
Specifically, Sandali Handagama at Coindesk reports that the Biden administration is looking at naming miners and developers as brokers, which would cause significant disruption in the creation and dissemination of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
“Crypto proponents fear this could all be very problematic for the industry in the U.S., and could even push innovation offshore,” Handagama writes.
In addition, the Biden team is reportedly looking to add digital assets explicitly to a section of the tax code called 60501, which lays out different types of violations of financial law, as written:
“Any person— (1) who is engaged in a trade or business, and (2) who, in the course of such trade or business, receives more than $10,000 in cash in 1 transaction (or 2 or more related transactions), shall make the return described in subsection (b) with respect to such transaction (or related transactions) at such time as the Secretary may by regulations prescribe.”
As quoted in Handagama’s story, Jerry Brito, executive director of a crypto lobbying group called Coin Center, says that since the laws are not going to go into effect until 2024, there’s still time for the administration to act and repeal these onerous determinations.
“We’ve been working with several members of the House to introduce standalone bills to amend the new crypto tax reporting provisions. We would have over two years to get these passed,” Brito recently tweeted in response to news of changes.
Handagama, in chronicling some of this concern, also makes reference to the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and their scrutiny of stablecoins, which we covered last week.
The bottom line seems to be that cryptocurrency traders and other parties could face new law enforcement challenges partly because, as Handagama points out, American officials feel that “not everyone is reporting” cryptocurrency capital gains.
At the same time, we see Bitcoin and other blockchain assets getting further wrapped into the web work of our financial world. That’s also reflected in Bitcoin’s continuing rally up toward the $70,000 mark. Watch Bitcoin prices and the news to see the full context of how coins are operating in this year’s new cryptocurrency market.
