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For two years, the cryptocurrency world has been waiting to see how the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would implement the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Put simply, this law established new reporting requirements that risked setting a de facto ban on cryptocurrency mining and exposing millions of Americans to new felony crimes. The good news is that the IRS’s nearly 300-page proposal is not quite as bad as it could have been under the law. However, that is far from saying it is good policy. 

As citizens, companies, and consultants finish crafting their comment letters ahead of the October 30 response deadline, it’s important to take a step back and recognize why businesses should not be required to report customers to the government by default.

Recalling back to 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was about building roads, bridges, and the like — it was not about cryptocurrency or financial reporting. It wasn’t until funding was desperately needed to offset spending that members of Congress slipped in two provisions to increase financial surveillance over cryptocurrency users. Their argument was that increasing surveillance would increase tax revenue, effectively accusing cryptocurrency users of tax evasion.

Related: New tax rules could mean a US exodus for crypto companies

At the time, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the provisions would yield around $28 billion in tax revenue over 1 years. Without a way to replace the funding, attempts to remove the controversial reporting requirements were ultimately rejected.

The $28 billion figure was questionable at the time. And less than a year later, the Biden administration released its budget, which contained a vastly different estimate. In contrast to the $28 billion estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Biden administration estimated that only $2 billion would be received over the next 10 years. And now, even that number might be an overestimation as Treasury officials acknowledged that the estimates were based on a very different market.

The IRS summary of its proposal for imposing new data-collection requirements on cryptocurrency service providers. Source: U.S. Federal Register

With cost-offsetting out the window, what is left appears to be little more than another brick in the wall of U.S. financial surveillance.

The IRS’s proposal, again, doesn’t seem as bad as it could have been since the proposal does exclude miners and some software developers for now. Still, the proposal chooses a concerning path for deciding who should be required to report customers.

The premise seems to be partly based on “whether a person is in a position to know information about the identity of a customer, rather than whether a person ordinarily would know such information.” The proposal states that this distinction is made because some platforms “have a policy of not requesting customer information or requesting only limited information [but] have the ability to obtain information about their customers by updating their protocols.” For this reason, the proposal states that the IRS expects some decentralized exchanges and selfhosted wallets may be forced to report their customers’ private information.

In other words, even though businesses may have no reason to collect sensitive, personal information from customers, the baseline that the IRS is working with is whether they have the ability to do so. That may be somewhat limited given the focus is on businesses providing a service, but “the ability to collect information” seems to be little more than “collection by default.”

While concerning, this approach should not come as a surprise. The U.S. government has slowly been establishing broader financial reporting requirements with the Bank Secrecy Act, the Patriot Act, and many other laws and regulations. The provisions in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the resulting proposal from the IRS are just the latest iteration of this expansive framework.

Related: Get ready for a swarm of incompetent IRS agents in 2023

Yet rather than continue to expand the range and depth of financial surveillance, now should be the time to question the premise as a whole. In a country where Americans are supposed to be protected by the Fourth Amendment, businesses should not be forced to report their customers to the government by default. Activities like using cryptocurrency for payments, receiving over $600 on PayPal after a garage sale, or getting a paycheck from a job should not put you on a government database.

Steering away from this surveillance status quo might require fundamental changes to U.S. law, but that’s not to say doing so is a radical idea. When surveyed by the Cato Institute, 79 percent of Americans said that it is unreasonable for banks to share financial information with the government and 83 percent said that the government should need a warrant to obtain financial information.

It is those principles that should guide the discussion forward. So, while the October 30 response deadline is just around the corner, commenters should weigh both what the proposal does and doesn’t say.

Furthermore, although the present focus is very much on the IRS, let’s not forget that the responsibility to fix both the current situation and the larger financial surveillance status quo lies in the halls of Congress. At the end of the day, the IRS is doing what Congress told it to do. So, it’s Congress that needs to step in to reform the system as a whole.

Nicholas Anthony is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. He is the author of The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s Attack on Crypto: Questioning the Rationale for the Cryptocurrency Provisions and The Right to Financial Privacy: Crafting a Better Framework for Financial Privacy in the Digital Age.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

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Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Lawmakers in the US states of Minnesota and Alabama filed companion bills to identical existing bills that if passed into law, would allow each state to buy Bitcoin.

The Minnesota Bitcoin Act, or HF 2946, was introduced to the state’s House by Republican Representative Bernie Perryman on April 1, following an identical bill introduced on March 17 by GOP state Senator Jeremy Miller.

Meanwhile, on the same day in Alabama, Republican state Senator Will Barfoot introduced Senate Bill 283, while a bi-partisan group of representatives led by Republican Mike Shaw filed the identical House Bill 482, which allows for the state to invest in crypto, but essentially limits it to Bitcoin (BTC).

Twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly name Bitcoin

Minnesota’s Bitcoin Act would allow the state’s investment board to invest state assets in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and permit state employees to add crypto to retirement accounts.

It would also exempt crypto gains from state income taxes and give residents the option to pay state taxes and fees with Bitcoin.

Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Source: Bitcoin Laws

The twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly identify Bitcoin, but would limit the state’s crypto investment into assets that have a minimum market value of $750 billion, a criterion that only Bitcoin currently meets.

26 Bitcoin reserve bills now introduced in the US

Introducing identical bills is not uncommon in the US and is typically done to speed up the bicameral legislative process so laws can pass more quickly.

Bills to create a Bitcoin reserve have been introduced in 26 US states, with Arizona currently the closest to passing a law to make one, according to data from the bill tracking website Bitcoin Laws.

Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Arizona currently leads in the US state Bitcoin reserve race. Source: Bitcoin Laws

Pennsylvania was one of the first US states to introduce a Bitcoin reserve bill, in November 2024. However, the initiative was reportedly eventually rejected, with similar bills also killed in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Related: North Carolina bills would add crypto to state’s retirement system 

Law, Bitcoin Regulation, United States, Policy, Bitcoin Reserve

Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wyoming are the five states thathave rejected Bitcoin reserve initiatives. Source: Bitcoin Laws

According to a March 3 report by Barron’s, “red states” like Montana have faced setbacks to the Bitcoin reserve initiatives amid political confrontations between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

Additional reporting by Helen Partz.

Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again

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US House committee passes stablecoin-regulating STABLE Act

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US House committee passes stablecoin-regulating STABLE Act

US House committee passes stablecoin-regulating STABLE Act

Update (April 3, 5:43 am UTC): This article has been updated to add information on the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act.

The US House Financial Services Committee has passed a Republican-backed stablecoin framework bill, which will now head to the House floor for a full vote.

The Committee passed the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, with a 32-17 vote on April 2, with six Democrats voting in favor.

The bill was introduced on Feb. 6 by committee Chair French Hill and the chair of its Digital Assets Subcommittee, Bryan Steil — reportedly drafted with the help of the world’s largest stablecoin issue, Tether.

US House committee passes stablecoin-regulating STABLE Act

Source: Financial Services GOP

The bill would provide rules around payment stablecoins, a crypto token tied to a currency such as the US dollar, and aims to ensure issuers give information about their business and how they back their tokens.

During an earlier markup session, the committee’s leading Democrat, Maxine Waters, who later voted against the bill, criticized her Republican peers for “setting an unacceptable and dangerous precedent” with the STABLE Act.

She said President Donald Trump could use the bill to allow his family’s stablecoin to be used in government payments, and argued the bill validates Trump “and his insiders’ efforts to write rules of the road that will enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.”

In late March, the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture launched a stablecoin, World Liberty Financial USD (USD1). Meanwhile, the US Housing Department, which oversees social housing, was reportedly looking to experiment with using stablecoins for some of its functions.

Stablecoin GENIUS Act also weaves through Congress 

Other stablecoin-related bills are also working their way through Congress, including the Republican-led Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, which lays out oversight and reserve rules for issuers.

Related: Crypto has a regulatory capture problem in Washington — or does it?

The US Senate Banking Committee voted through the GENIUS Act in an 18-6 vote on March 13, after Senator Bill Hagerty, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, updated it following consultation with the Committee’s Democrats.

Before the vote, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said the updated GENIUS Act made “significant improvements to a number of important provisions” in areas such as consumer protections and authorized stablecoin issuers.

Both the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act will now wait until debate time on the floor of the House and Senate, respectively, before they head for a floor vote.

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on X that two unnamed crypto lobbyists said there is likely to be “a coordinated push behind the scenes over the next few weeks to get the two bills to mirror each other, as there are still some differences between them.”

Doing so would “avoid having to set up a so-called conference committee which is formed so members from both chambers can negotiate to create a final version of the bill everyone agrees on,” she added.

Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

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‘My lawyers are ready’ for questions about corruption claims, ex-minister tells Sky News

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'My lawyers are ready' for questions about corruption claims, ex-minister tells Sky News

Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.

Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.

The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.

In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.

Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.

Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.

The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.

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Staff from the NCA visited Bangladesh as part of initial work to support the interim government in the country.

In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.

Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.

The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.

Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.

She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.

Electrocuted on their genitals and mouths sewn up: Inside Bangladesh’s ‘death squad’ jails

Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.

She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.

Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.

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