Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

The breakdown is sponsored by nexo.io and produced and distributed by CoinDes.

What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, May 18th, and I don't know about you, but it has been

so many days of endless meditation and analysis on the meaning of Musk that today I thought

I do some good old-fashioned news. So this is one of those

shows that's a roundup of about five topics, basically an extended brief. And I want to start with

crypto's allies on Capitol Hill. We're so used to looking at regulatory risk and the loud

politicians who don't like Bitcoin and crypto, that we forget that this

cycle has much stronger allies than we've had in the past. Here's one example. Yesterday,

Representative Tom Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, reintroduced legislation that would

prevent the IRS from penalizing taxpayers on forked assets until the IRS can provide

clarity on its policies. Basically, imagine that someone forked Bitcoin until the IRS can provide clarity on its policies.

Basically, imagine that someone forked Bitcoin into Bitcoin Elon rules.

And Airdropped you your equivalent holdings on the new chain.

But you didn't want the stupid Bitcoin Elon rules because Elon does not rule.

Well, according to guidance from October 2019, the IRS would say that your Bitcoin-Elon

rules holdings would count as taxable income.

Surprise, surprise, another Elon coin messing up your day.

This approach says Emmer, and everyone in the crypto space, is ludicrous.

In fact, it shows plainly that regulators can't just straight up apply existing thinking

to this new domain.

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