Infrastructure bill stuck in the Senate! U.S. Senate delays vote, may be pushed to late Monday showdown

The U.S. infrastructure bill was debated throughout Sunday, with the Senate still postponing the vote on the cryptocurrency tax amendment due to ongoing conflicts over how to levy taxes on cryptocurrencies, without reaching a consensus.

The U.S. infrastructure bill, after a whole day on Sunday, saw the Senate postponing the vote on the cryptocurrency tax amendment due to ongoing conflicts on how to levy taxes on cryptocurrencies, without reaching a consensus.

In addition to the cryptocurrency tax, there are dozens of other amendments in the Senate, and some senators are unwilling to vote too hastily, so the vote may be postponed until Monday night or Tuesday morning.

Sunday night infrastructure bill update:

The Senate has voted 68-29 to end debate. We wanted a vote on the Wyden amendment first, or on a Wyden-Warner compromise, but no luck.

The Senate has to wait until Tuesday to do a final vote. They might still amend the bill before then. https://t.co/VFrmnZqOPQ

— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) August 9, 2021

One version of the cryptocurrency tax amendment was proposed by Senators Ron Wyden, Cynthia Lummis, and Pat Toomey, and has received support from the cryptocurrency industry. The version proposed by these three senators would exempt non-custodial entities from transferring customer information to tax authorities, such as Bitcoin miners and wallet operators.

According to a report by Decrypt, Senator Toomey told Business Insider reporters, "We shouldn't be burdening people who don't actually have centralized exchanges."

Dem Sens. Mark Warner and Ron Wyden just walked from Senate subway onto the floor having what looked like serious crypto discussions.

Both have dueling amendments on crypto tax enforcement

Overheard this from Wyden: “Revenue is very important to me”

— Joseph Zeballos-Roig (@josephzeballos) August 7, 2021

Another version, proposed by Senators Mark Warner and Rob Portman and favored by President Biden, was met with skepticism from within the cryptocurrency industry and was subsequently amended.

Initially, their version excluded entities like Bitcoin miners using Proof of Work (PoW) but did not exempt Proof of Stake (PoS) entities, such as those in Ethereum 2.0, from reporting requirements. The cryptocurrency industry unanimously found this unworkable as non-custodial entities do not collect customer information, leading to many of them being included under this version.

Mark Warner and Rob Portman then proposed an amendment to exclude both PoW and PoS entities but did not include any other consensus mechanisms, such as Ripple's "Federated Byzantine Agreement" or Solana's "Proof of History" mechanism. The cryptocurrency industry also disapproved of this version as it arbitrarily supported two consensus mechanisms.

Senator Wyden stated that he wants to combat tax evasion but does not want to stifle innovation from decentralized networks.

If senators vote against both cryptocurrency amendments, other amendments will need to be proposed, with Senator Ted Cruz already submitting his own amendment in response.

Jerry Brito, executive director of the Washington-based cryptocurrency research institution Coin Center, said that removing cryptocurrency from the bill is not feasible, so if the current version does not pass, other amendments will need to be proposed.

This article is authorized reprint from Horizon News Network