- The initial version of the now agreed-upon $1T infrastructure bill in Congress doesn't call for any new taxes on crypto transactions, but does call for increased reporting from exchanges and other market participants. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but language in the bill apparently expanded the term "broker" to mean basically every digital market participant, including those to whom these new reporting requirements would be impossible to fulfill (think miners, software/hardware developers, decentralized exchanges, or even some random guy running a node in his basement).
- Were this language to remain, some in the digital world believe it could be a kill switch for much of the Bitcoin (BTC-USD) industry in the U.S. Recall, that China several weeks ago more or less banned bitcoin mining in that country.
- That all said, the bill isn't finalized, and the digital industry is marshalling its relatively modest lobbying power to try and soften the language. Coindesk this morning reports that effort is having some limited success.
- Coincenter's Jerry Brito is also reporting on the lobbying efforts.
- Checking price action, bitcoin over the weekend rose as high as $42.5K, but had a rough Sunday night, now down 5% for the day to $39.3K. Ethereum (ETH-USD) is flat at $2,560.
- Premarket action in bitcoin miners like Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ:RIOT), Canaan (NASDAQ:CAN), Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA), Bit Digital (NASDAQ:BTBT) doesn't indicate too much concern - all are flat to modestly higher.
- For more on the infrastructure bill, read here.