Crypto industry calls on Congress to block new DeFi broker rules

2024-12-30 09:34:26 Primitive Reading

From cointelegraph by Ana Paula Pereira

The final regulations classifying several decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols as brokers have sparked immediate backlash within the crypto industry, with calls for the incoming Congress to overturn the new rules.

Disclosed on Dec. 27 by the US Internal Revenue Service, the new regulations treat front-end protocols facilitating digital asset transactions as brokers, requiring Know Your Customer disclosures of transactions. According to the agency, the regulations will affect up to 875 DeFi brokers.

The new rules have sparked a widespread backlash on social media, with many legal experts suggesting that the IRS may be overstepping its authority and infringing constitutional rights.

“This unlawful rule is the dying gasp of the anti-crypto army on its way out of power. It must be struck down, either by the courts or the incoming administration,” said Jake Chervinsky, chief legal officer at venture capital firm Variant.

For Alexander Grieve, vice-president of government affairs at venture firm Paradigm, “the new pro-crypto Congress can, and should, roll these back via the CRA process next year,” he said on X.

The CRA, or Congressional Review Act, allows Congress to review and potentially disapprove of regulations issued by agencies like the IRS.

The DeFi broker definition encompasses platforms performing intermediary functions in facilitating transactions, including a group of persons facilitating transactions “whether or not the group operates through a legal entity.”

Miles Jennings, general counsel of a16z Crypto, claimed the rule represents “a fantastical expansion of the words “effectuate transactions” to enable the IRS to ban DeFi.”

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