Compromise Provision Tanked by Octogenarian Near-Retiree, but Crypto Shows DC It's Here to Stay

The Breakdown

Blockworks

Investing, Business

4.8 • 786 Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The compromise amendment to the crypto provision in the infrastructure bill was shot down in the Senate yesterday. On this episode of “The Breakdown,” NLW covers what’s happened, what’s next and what it all means, including: The compromise’s demise Next stop: The House of Representatives Crypto’s newfound relevance in political discourse The compromise – proposed by Senators Lummis and Toomey, and backed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen – was rejected by a single senator. The amendment would have required unanimous consent but was tanked by Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby over an unrelated dispute on additional military funding. The bill now moves to the House where it will be deliberated more, though it is unclear how much room there will be for modifications once it gets there. Emerging crypto-friendly lawmakers continue to push to improve the broker definition within the provision. The infrastructure bill saga represents the first act in crypto entering the highest echelons of political discussion in the U.S. Instead of pushing quiet legislation through, this crypto provision gave the industry an unprecedented platform and relevance in the eyes of lawmakers. Will crypto be a key issue for lawmakers in the future? Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1438693620?at=1000lSDb Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/538vuul1PuorUDwgkC8JWF?si=ddSvD-HST2e_E7wgxcjtfQ Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ubHdjcnlwdG8ubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M= Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW The Breakdown is written, produced by and features NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Tidal Wave” by BRASKO. Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News, modified by CoinDesk.

Transcript

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0:00.0	That is exactly what the Treasury Department just did with the crypto industry.
0:05.3	They put crypto on the center stage.
0:07.8	They tried to exert a power that a significant number of people did not think they should have.
0:12.4	They tried to strangle innovation in the cradle, and instead, the way things played out,
0:17.6	they accidentally marked us as their equal and made us stronger, I think,
0:23.3	than ever before. Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro,
0:32.0	Bitcoin, and the Big Picture Power Shifts remaking our world. The breakdown is sponsored by Nidig and produced and distributed by
0:40.7	CoinDesk. What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, August 10th, and here we are, something like 11 days
0:48.8	after we first heard about the crypto provision in the infrastructure bill, and we appear finally
0:53.2	to be at the end of this
0:54.9	first act. I call it a first act because, as you'll see, while the specifics of this provision
1:00.5	matter greatly, it seems likely to me that the real significance of the last week and a half
1:05.1	goes far beyond any one bill. Instead, it's about a new era of crypto entering the mainstream political discourse.
1:13.4	Where we left off yesterday was that the authors of two competing amendments,
1:16.9	Wyden, Toomey, and Lummis on the one hand, Warner, Portman, and Cinema on the other,
1:21.6	were furiously engaged trying to find compromised language. Remember, the one chance we had to
1:27.3	get something through was that, one, we had to find compromise language. Remember, the one chance we had to get something through was that,
1:28.7	one, we had to find compromise language that was acceptable to all, and two, get unanimous
1:34.7	consent to add the language as an amendment. This unanimous consent thing is nuts, and please
1:41.6	remember, as you're apportioning your ire around all of this, that the reason
1:45.5	the amendment couldn't be voted on normally was that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had decided
1:49.7	to disallow all amendments. The air on crypto-twitter was thick with tension, and then, around
	...

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