Senator Rob Portman defends the inclusion of cryptography in US infrastructure

Bill Portman claims that his “common-sense” proposal would bring transparency to the crypto business. His proposal would require brokers to submit information consistently.

Portman defends crypto provision

Senator Rob Portman has defended a contentious cryptocurrency provision. He snuck into a $1 trillion infrastructure package now being debated in the Senate.

By imposing additional information reporting requirements on exchanges and perhaps other types of firms, the measure aims to generate $28 billion in tax revenue from crypto enterprises in the form of tax revenues.

Portman claims that his “common-sense” proposal would improve the crypto industry’s transparency and legitimacy. Additionally, requiring brokers to disclose information to the Internal Revenue Service in a consistent manner.

What does the debate revolve around?

The debate revolves around the notion of a “broker”. A broker is someone who “effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person”. Some claim that this has far-reaching repercussions, implying that it may affect both autonomous exchanges and crypto miners.

In the past position of the provision, decentralised exchanges were explicitly mentioned but were deleted in the final version.

The Opposition

Portman has defended the bill, claiming that it would not impose additional reporting requirements on software developers, cryptocurrency miners, node operators, or other non-brokers.

“It simply says that brokers must comply with standard information reporting obligations. Which many already do,” the senator said.

However, there is bipartisan opposition to the provision. Senators Ron Wyden, Cynthia Lummis and Pat Toomey are working on an amendment to change the language. However, how they intend to do so is not yet clear.