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This will likely have to be tested in court if not fixed legislatively. What is more concerning is that legislators can come up with this clearly unworkable la

This will likely have to be tested in court if not fixed legislatively. What is more concerning is that legislators can come up with this clearly unworkable law without doing a modicum of research.

elil17 5y ago
Why would this require a court test? It's clearly constitutional (commerce clause) and there are a ton of past legal cases where reporting requirements have been enforced. Any "DeFi" user/creator who tries to keep using those products after this law passes would be well advised to take a plea deal because they would really have no defense.
malermeister 5y ago
Why would this law be unworkable? You are under the assumption that you have a god-given right to DeFi. You do not. If this law is incompatible with DeFi, it is DeFi that is unworkable, not the law.
rasengan 5y ago
> without doing a modicum of research I think they know exactly what they are doing.
- TheBill 5y ago
  They do, and they very much view it as a threat to the centralized power of the USG.
  - the_optimist 5y ago
    At the very least, it's a legislative shake down opportunity. Form a team 'for' and a team 'against,' and each gets paid to 'fight' by their respective consitutency.
- mattnewton 5y ago
  Or rather, the lobbyists working with them know what they are doing
  - User23 5y ago
    The lobbyists are just bagmen. A big part of what they are paid for is obfuscating who actually wrote the legislation and on whose behalf they did it.
josho 5y ago
I don’t understand the issue. Today if I have a cash transaction greater than $10k I have to report it. This bill just clarified that cash includes digital assets. Is your issue with the existing law or you feel crypto shouldn’t be treated like cash?
- nybble41 5y ago
  > Is your issue with the existing law or you feel crypto shouldn’t be treated like cash? Both. This law is wrong (even without the crypto / DeFi elements) and crypto shouldn't be treated like cash. It's not property, or even a legally enforceable contract like the one that governs your relationship with your bank. From any reasonable perspective it should be classified as something akin to "goodwill" and not something the law should concern itself with.
  - eutropia 5y ago
    It's not property, except I want to be able to own it, buy it, and sell it for $CURRENCY...
    - nybble41 5y ago
      It's not legally property. Legally you don't own it. If the network suddenly changes its rules and says it's not yours then you have no legal recourse against the developers/miners/etc. If you buy, that's a service; you're paying someone to apply their signature to a note in the distributed ledger. You don't own the note and the currency itself is nothing more than an abstract concept which has meaning only to the extend that there is consensus among the users, none of whom have any particular obligations toward you.
      - josho 5y ago
        What may be semantically true may also be quite different than peoples perceptions. And peoples perceptions and how they functionally treat crypto is like a currency, it's even in the name. So, I strongly suspect if you tried to argue that position in a court of law, or even in a debate amongst tech. peers you would come out on the loosing end. Regardless, I appreciate your perspective. Thank you for sharing.

This will likely have to be tested in court if not fixed legislatively. What is more concerning is that legislators can come up with this clearly unworkable law without doing a modicum of research.

elil17 5y ago

Why would this require a court test? It's clearly constitutional (commerce clause) and there are a ton of past legal cases where reporting requirements have been enforced. Any "DeFi" user/creator who tries to keep using those products after this law passes would be well advised to take a plea deal because they would really have no defense.

malermeister 5y ago

Why would this law be unworkable? You are under the assumption that you have a god-given right to DeFi. You do not. If this law is incompatible with DeFi, it is DeFi that is unworkable, not the law.

rasengan 5y ago

> without doing a modicum of research I think they know exactly what they are doing.

TheBill 5y ago
They do, and they very much view it as a threat to the centralized power of the USG.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  At the very least, it's a legislative shake down opportunity. Form a team 'for' and a team 'against,' and each gets paid to 'fight' by their respective consitutency.
mattnewton 5y ago
Or rather, the lobbyists working with them know what they are doing
- User23 5y ago
  The lobbyists are just bagmen. A big part of what they are paid for is obfuscating who actually wrote the legislation and on whose behalf they did it.

josho 5y ago

I don’t understand the issue. Today if I have a cash transaction greater than $10k I have to report it. This bill just clarified that cash includes digital assets. Is your issue with the existing law or you feel crypto shouldn’t be treated like cash?

nybble41 5y ago
> Is your issue with the existing law or you feel crypto shouldn’t be treated like cash? Both. This law is wrong (even without the crypto / DeFi elements) and crypto shouldn't be treated like cash. It's not property, or even a legally enforceable contract like the one that governs your relationship with your bank. From any reasonable perspective it should be classified as something akin to "goodwill" and not something the law should concern itself with.
- eutropia 5y ago
  It's not property, except I want to be able to own it, buy it, and sell it for $CURRENCY...
  - nybble41 5y ago
    It's not legally property. Legally you don't own it. If the network suddenly changes its rules and says it's not yours then you have no legal recourse against the developers/miners/etc. If you buy, that's a service; you're paying someone to apply their signature to a note in the distributed ledger. You don't own the note and the currency itself is nothing more than an abstract concept which has meaning only to the extend that there is consensus among the users, none of whom have any particular obligations toward you.
    - josho 5y ago
      What may be semantically true may also be quite different than peoples perceptions. And peoples perceptions and how they functionally treat crypto is like a currency, it's even in the name. So, I strongly suspect if you tried to argue that position in a court of law, or even in a debate amongst tech. peers you would come out on the loosing end. Regardless, I appreciate your perspective. Thank you for sharing.