Yellen privately lobbying lawmakers against Wyden-Lummis-Toomey crypto amendment | Hacker News Reader

Yellen privately lobbying lawmakers against Wyden-Lummis-Toomey crypto amendment

washingtonpost.com

46 pointsCryptoPunk19 comments

The bill has nothing to do with ‘raising money’. There are no new taxes or sources of revenue in the bill. It’s about two things: 1. putting greater surveillance on crypto than cash, and 2. making operation of crypto/defi impossible and therefore illegal.

The amendment is simply making it not illegal to not do the impossible (miners and programmers issuing 1099s to users). Without it, operating a crypto network or writing smart contracts is illegal in the United States, except for a few giant exchanges and funds of course. Wall St. can have it, but you can’t. At that point I’ll agree with all the anti-crypto posters that it’s just a big scam on retail investors.

Now it’s 100% transparent that this is her goal. I keep restating: this is exactly the reason that cryptocurrency has any value at all.

https://mobile.twitter.com/documentingbtc/status/13957896200...

On a long enough timeline, I think it will be impossible to exchange self-custodied cryptos to or from fiat. At that point, it’s either a medium of exchange, or it’s worthless. I have a lot more to say about that, but I will save it.

> simply making it not illegal to not do the impossible

What?

The bill makes it illegal to write code or validate blocks without issuing a 1099 to users. That would be impossible, so it’s illegal to not do the impossible. The amendment makes the above not illegal. Their logic, not mine.

You're still speaking with too many negatives. Try phrasing with positive words in place of "without", "impossible", or "illegal", and especially avoid "not illegal".

I did this intentionally. There is no such thing as a law making something ‘legal’. It can only make something ‘illegal’ or ‘not illegal’.

Pray tell, what law school did you go to where this was taught?

Law school doesn’t make laws, but this is also taught in law school: https://hls.harvard.edu/academics/curriculum/catalog/index.h...

I thought the Wyden-Lummis-Toomey amendment was well thought out [1] and I called my senators to support that.

The newly proposed amendment from Warner-Portman-Sinema [2] could cause a few issues that I see:

1) Limiting the Lightning Network for Bitcoin, which enables off chain, instant, low fee payments (I think that Bitcoin itself would be fine considering that it is proof of work).

2) Limiting DeFi protocols.

3) Limiting proof of stake coins. My guess is that Senators Warner, Portman, or Sinema couldn't describe the difference between proof of work and proof of stake if asked. However, they have only called out proof of work in their newly proposed amendment. I think both miners in proof of work and stakers / validators in proof of stake are worth protecting given that both consensus mechanisms have pros / cons. One benefit of proof of stake is that it uses a lot less energy, which seems like a big oversight to not include in their amendment. Asking miners or stakers / validators to KYC and provide 1099s for transactions they are processing is not even possible right now. If the senators understood the technology in more detail then they would understand that this is unenforceable.

I understand the narrative that crypto is being included in this infrastructure bill to try to help pay for it. OK, sure. I also think that folks should pay their crypto taxes. However, I'm not really OK with senators who don't understand the tech in depth to make laws about it.

I also do think that this could drive crypto innovation outside of the US, moving jobs elsewhere. I think the US has an opportunity to be a crypto hub just like they are the predominant player in the equity markets. I believe we should foster crypto innovation in the US, not stifle it.

This video from Charles Hoskinson [3], co-founder of Ethereum (which is moving to proof of stake from proof of work) and the founder of Cardano (which currently utilizes proof of stake), has some commentary on this as well.

[1] https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wyden%20Lummis%...

[2] https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1423429377459736577

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEF8dwF36qY

The article calls crypto-currency a "trillion-dollar industry", that seems like a gross exaggeration or I just misinformed?

This is the sum of the market cap of all cryptocurrencies. Whether this is a fair way to value the industry or not is up to the reader.

The stock market is a $47T industry. Residential real estate is a $36T industry. How much is the oxygen breathing industry worth?

47+36+1=84T

I feel like that’s an under-valuation of the oxygen, water, and sunlight market. We should be paying tax on at least $1M per day per person.

And now that they have a valuation for the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm, perhaps they can venture an assessment for the Pythagorean theorem. I’ve been wondering how much I owe on all of my right triangles.

It’s a gross exaggeration, if you tried to move the sort of volume that index or bond futures traders do on a daily basis, you’d run out of liquidity.

That is a bit odd. AUM isn't the same as revenue.

It's not even remotely AUM either. These markets are all extremely shallow and highly correlated. You couldn't sell even a few billion USD worth of crypto in a short period of time without tanking the entire enterprise.

Because it will legitimize crypto, not discourage it.

regulation is a boon to honest actors and bane to scams.

however, regulatory capture inverts that.

this all entirely depends on your pov on yellen and the current senate

> this all entirely depends on your pov on yellen and the current senate

Or the next twelve...

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