Billionaire investor Mark Cuban lashes out for shutting crypto growth in infrastructure bill
There’s been a lot of drama going around the U.S. infrastructure and the introduction of crypto taxes along with it. Billionaire investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban has recently lashed out at regulators for shutting off the crypto “growth engine”.
He further noted that banning crypto would be like banning e-commerce in 1995. Cuban made this statement last weekend during an interview with The Washington Post. Drawing a parallel between the growth of crypto and the growth of the internet, he said:
Shutting off this growth engine would be the equivalent of stopping e-commerce in 1995 because people were afraid of credit card fraud. Or regulating the creation of websites because some people initially thought they were complicated and didn’t understand what they would ever amount to.
The Dalla Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been an open advocate of crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi). He has heavily invested in some of the popular and upcoming blockchain projects like Polygon.
The Dallas Mavericks itself accepts crypto payments through Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE). Cuban is among the recent prominent individuals to join the criticism for the U.S. Infrastructure bill.
The unclear language of the bill that seeks to rope in several crypto stakeholders also hasn’t gone well with the crypto community.
The controversial U.S Infrastructure Bill
The $1 trillion U.S. infrastructure bill brings new rules for reporting crypto transactions to the IRS. It seeks to generate an additional $28 billion in revenue by taxing crypto transactions. The bill notes that “brokers” have to provide information regarding the transfers of digital assets.
However, the crypto industry has pushed back on the unclear use of the term “broker”. It means that several stakeholders including miners, lenders, stakers, etc. would be part of the tax reporting.
This will further force crypto companies and players operating in this space to collect more user information. Several lawmakers and other popular personalities have also raised objections to the bill. In a series of tweets last Sunday, Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey wrote:
Forcing reporting rules on Americans who develop software and hardware, who mine and secure the network, or who run nodes to build resilience and efficiencies, is an impossible ask that will only drive development and operation of this critical technology outside the US.
If we can’t strike the entire provision so we can have proper hearings and deliberation, then let’s simplify the definition of broker to what really matters: where digital assets are exchanged for fiat currency.
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Senators Pat Toomey and Cynthia Lummis have put forward their proposal to exempt miners from the bill.
