- Tesla CEO and crypto promoter Elon Musk tweeted following Armstrong’s speech that there is no crisis that requires fast action
- The $1 trillion infrastructure measure is anticipated to be voted on by lawmakers Saturday
- One of the most ardent opponents of the tax provision is Armstrong. His second 10-tweet sequence in two days
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was replying to a tweet from Elon Musk in which he asked lawmakers to refrain from picking winners and losers in cryptocurrency technology. Musk, Tesla’s CEO and a crypto-influencer tweeted after Armstrong deemed the latest proposed adjustment to the contentious tax clause disastrous: There is no crisis that requires fast legislation.
Amendment to be passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee
Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) submitted an amendment late Thursday to water down the provision by excluding proof-of-work mining and entities involved in the sale of hardware or software that gives individuals control of private keys for digital assets. The amendment was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday morning. The $1 trillion infrastructure measure is anticipated to be voted on by lawmakers Saturday.
One of the most ardent opponents of the tax provision is Armstrong. As in the previous two days, he mainly railed against the Portman-Warner amendment in a 10-tweet sequence. @MarkWarner has suggested an amendment at the eleventh hour that would determine which cryptographic basic technologies are acceptable and which are not, Armstrong wrote. It’s a disaster.
Views of Armstrong on the new regulations
Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) supported an earlier revision, which Armstrong commended in a Wednesday Twitter thread for reducing the definition of intermediaries who have the capacity to report.
By saddling miners, validators, smart contracts, open-source developers, and others with significant reporting duties, he believes the law will jeopardize the growth of crypto in the United States and drive innovation to other countries. According to Armstrong, these regulations would force Coinbase and other exchanges to monitor their users’ transactions more closely than traditional financial services companies, and he urged readers to contact their reps and persuade them to remove the surveillance language.
With a background in journalism, Ritika Sharma has worked with many reputed media firms focusing on general news such as politics and crime. She joined The Coin Republic as a reporter for crypto, and found a great passion for cryptocurrency, Web3, NFTs and other digital assets. She spends a lot of time researching and delving deeper into these concepts around the clock, and is a strong advocate for women in STEM.