Janet Yellen, U.S. Treasury secretary, arrives at a Eurogroup meeting of European Union (EU) finance ministers in Brussels, Belgium.
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The Treasury Department will not oppose a bipartisan agreement that limits a proposal in the infrastructure bill to increase federal regulation of cryptocurrencies.
“I am grateful to Senators Warner, Portman, Sinema, Toomey and Lummis for working together on this amendment to provide clarity on important provisions in the bipartisan infrastructure deal that will make meaningful progress on tax evasion in the cryptocurrency market,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in a statement out Monday afternoon. “I am also thankful to Chair Wyden for his leadership and engagement on these important issues.”
Earlier, Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., Mark Warner, D-Va., Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said they were negotiating with Treasury to reconcile two competing amendments over how broadly to define the definition of a broker.
A person familiar with the discussions between Treasury and Capitol Hill said that Treasury is not opposed to the deal between the two groups of senators.
“We’ve worked with the Treasury Department to clarify the underlying text and ensure that those who are not acting as brokers will not be subject to the bill’s reporting requirements,” the group said in a press release.
“While we each would have drafted this solution differently, we all agree it’s important to ensure that these obligations are properly crafted to apply only to entities that are regularly effectuating transactions of digital assets in exchange for consideration,” they added.
The White House had initially backed an amendment supported by Warner, Sinema and Portman that would have exempted more cryptocurrency actors from greater regulation than the bill’s original language but fewer than Wyden, Toomey and Lummis wanted.
But with Treasury now supporting a deal between the two sides, the compromise is likely somewhere in the middle. The details of the agreement between the two groups of senators were not available as of early Monday afternoon.
Bitcoin was up 5.9% on the session at $46,217 on Monday afternoon.
