Infrastructure Bill | U.S. Senate Chaos, Crypto Amendment Suffers Last-Minute Setback

After several twists and turns, the cryptocurrency amendment in the US infrastructure bill ultimately failed to receive unanimous consent in the Senate vote on Monday. Senator Richard Shelby's proposal to increase military spending did not garner enough support, leading to his opposition to the cryptocurrency amendment.

After several twists and turns, the cryptocurrency amendment in the U.S. infrastructure bill ultimately failed to receive unanimous consent in the Senate vote on Monday. The reason was that Senator Richard Shelby's proposal to increase military spending did not garner support, leading to his opposition to the cryptocurrency amendment.

Senators Cynthia Lummis and Pat Toomey introduced an amendment before the Monday vote, which gained consensus from both Democrats and Republicans, even with the support of Treasury Secretary Yellen, to exclude cryptocurrency validators from being classified as "brokers."

However, Richard Shelby's attempt to attach his own amendment to increase military spending by $50 billion was met with opposition from Senator Bernie Sanders, resulting in Shelby subsequently opposing the cryptocurrency amendment, thus failing to obtain unanimous consent from the entire Senate.

The Senate is scheduled to pass the infrastructure bill on Tuesday, but as there is still some time before the legislation is finalized, the content may still be subject to change during the House vote.

Pat Toomey stated that the amendment will specifically clarify who has the tax reporting obligations as "brokers" and that "the amendment makes clear that brokers are only those individuals engaged in the buying and selling of digital assets." By this definition, software developers, node operators, and validators are not considered "brokers."

Treasury Secretary Yellen expressed appreciation for Senators Warner, Portman, Sinema, Toomey, and Lummis for jointly proposing this amendment, which clarifies key provisions in the infrastructure bill, stating that "this will make meaningful progress in addressing tax evasion issues in the cryptocurrency market."

This article is authorized for reprint from Horizon News Network