A New Congressional Bill Aims To Spur Crypto's Growth

It’s been a rough month for the crypto world, which has faced market crashes, layoffs, lawsuits from regulators and rising rhetorical pushback from critics. But on June 7, two U.S. senators introduced a bipartisan bill that, if passed, could clear the way for increased crypto adoption and growth.

The Responsible Financial Innovation Act, proposed by the New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand and the Wyoming Republican Cynthia Lummis, aims to “take a light regulatory touch,” Sen. Lummis said at the DC Blockchain Summit last month. Lummis hopes it will foster innovation while putting up just enough consumer guardrails. While some crypto insiders are excited about the bill’s potential, skeptics fear it will allow too much leeway in an industry rife with fraud and financial crime.

Most experts believe that the bill’s chances of passage before the midterm elections are extremely slim. Nevertheless, here are some of its main elements.

Tax filing for crypto users can be extremely onerous, and Gillibrand and Lummis’s bill attempts to help ease those difficulties. It stipulates that buying goods or services under $200 with crypto no longer necessitates filing a report to the IRS, which would make it easier to buy a coffee with Bitcoin, for instance. The bill also walks back a provision in last year’s infrastructure bill that hit crypto miners with heavier taxation.