Mark Cuban has come out to express his displeasure on the tighter rules for cryptocurrency and the crypto-space in general which was introduced in the new infrastructure bill.
Leaders in the crypto industry have continued to speak out as the US Senate enacted a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure plan, which includes tighter regulations for crypto businesses and expanded reporting requirements for brokers. Mark Cuban, a billionaire investor and proponent of Bitcoin (BTC), is one of them.
Cuban made a link between the advent of crypto and the rise of e-commerce and the internet in general in an interview with The Washington Post over the weekend before the bill formally passed the senate:
“Shutting off this growth engine would be the equivalent of stopping e-commerce in 1995 because people were afraid of credit card fraud. Or regulating the creation of websites because some people initially thought they were complicated and didn’t understand what they would ever amount to.”
Mark Cuban is an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance. The owner of the Dallas Mavericks is well-known for allowing the team to take Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE) as payment for tickets and merchandise.
In May, he also claimed that crypto asset values are becoming more representative of real utility and demand and that the day will come when crypto is “mature to the point we wonder how we ever survived without it.”
The controversial bill was voted by the US Senate 69–30 on Tuesday morning. The bill’s main focus is on funding for roads, bridges, and other large infrastructure projects totalling about $1 trillion.
The bill, however, has sparked widespread anxiety in the crypto community since it would impose stricter regulations on crypto businesses, increase broker reporting requirements, and require that digital asset transactions worth more than $10,000 be disclosed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Senator Pat Toomey, who was one of the lawmakers who drafted an amendment to the infrastructure bill exempting certain crypto companies from broker reporting requirements, said the new legislation imposes “a badly flawed, and in some cases unworkable, cryptocurrency tax reporting mandate that threatens future technological innovation.”
