It is an absolutely amazing irony that the biggest policy fight right now among the industry behind blockchain — which allows anyone to independently verify transactions through its distributed ledger — is over the independent and decentralized verification of transactions.
Maybe it’s because it’s not really about that at all.
I’m talking, of course, about the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which has a provision that effectively transforms the way that crypto trading happens. As I’ve written about before, the bill, should President Joe Biden sign it into law, would essentially treat crypto like some other financial assets, and require sales and purchases to be reported by brokers and holders to the Internal Revenue Service.
