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SARAH KREPS: Hello, everyone, and welcome. My name is Sarah Kreps, and I am a Professor of Government and Law and the Head of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University. I will be your moderator for the podcast today, Crypto Policy and AI Lab, New Crypto Policy Could Stifle Innovation and Economy.
We are delighted to have with us on our panel today, Susan Joseph, a lawyer and consultant and the Executive Director of the Fintech Initiative at Cornell Business School. John Wu, President of Ava Labs, and Jason Schwartz, Tax Partner and Co-head of Digital Assets at Fried Frank.
So we are thrilled to be incorporating both the academy and industry together to discuss crypto's critical moment in the US. So we're talking about the future of crypto from a regulatory standpoint. And I'm going to ask Jason to kick us off to explain what concerns the current moment poses and why we're here talking about it today?
JASON SCHWARTZ: Yeah, so we are currently facing an existential threat to digital asset innovation in the United States. Under newly-proposed IRS regulations that the IRS can finalize however it wants, when it wants, the regulations would effectively ban blockchain innovation and the use of crypto within the United States under the guise of information reporting.
Right now, the proposed regulations are proposed. There's a comment period that ends on November 13. After that, the IRS is required to consider all comments but is not required to take any comments. And then it can finalize the regulations having considered the comments in their current form.
And if it does so, effectively everyone involved at all in blockchain technology would be treated as a broker and effectively barred from being able to do any blockchain innovation in the United States because the regulations would impose too great a burden on those persons. And anyone outside of the United States who doesn't want to fall under this rubric would have to block US people from using their products.
SARAH KREPS: Well, this sounds like a really big deal. And yeah, and it sounds like there have been a lot of comments already. And so there's still some time for others to make comments. Susan, could you add to this? Why is this such a big deal?
SUSAN JOSEPH: Yeah, so I want to put my answer in some context. Crypto is still what I would consider a nascent industry, but it's found its product market fit 15 years after its start. If you compare that to the internet, the internet took about 20 years to find product market fit. And before then, we had a lot of naysayers. Just like today, we have a lot of naysayers with crypto.
But finding the product market fit, which I think is stablecoins, I think we should be really excited and energized by this because it looks like it's going to usher in a way to have more inclusive financial access. Instead, I am sounding the red alert, all hands on deck, any possible metaphor that you could use because I think this is truly, as Jason said, an existential moment.
This rule that the IRS proposes and can enact if it feels like it would drive this industry and all modernization, and that means all jobs about the economy and all economy impacts off shore. Now, if you look at what the IRS predicted in 2021 when it was first talking about these kinds of rules, it estimated it would receive $28 billion if this new rule was created.
Well, I'm going to say that $28 billion, first of all, in new taxes is just a percentage of what the entire value of the economic landscape is for this type of innovation and technology. But also, there's no way that $28 billion is coming into the IRS coffers if this rule is passed because the industry is going to vaporize. It is just not going to happen here. And so that, to me, is a false number, saying that they're going to get certain amount of revenue, when in reality it will be pretty close to a goose egg.
So all of this means, I think, that there is a terrible economic loss in the USA. And I want to also point out, for Web3, most positions are remote. So if you're working in Web3, it can be in a big city. But it can also be in middle America. And so this affects jobs everywhere, and it's a huge loss of economic opportunity, which I think has not been emphasized.
JOHN WU: I would like to-- as an operator in this space, I want to attach a few stories related to that. Ava Labs was actually-- I'm a Cornell graduate. Ava Labs was founded by a Cornell Professor, and the technology, the consensus protocol was commercialized. Ava Labs is a software services company, but it's responsible for the permissionless open blockchain Avalanche, just to be clear.
Now, Ava Labs, since the beginning four or five years ago, has hired just from Cornell alone about 70 Cornell-related students and provided jobs for them. And we are in the New York City area. So most of these kids came to New York to work. If this were to happen as Jason described it, there goes 70 jobs from Cornell alone, not including the other, call it, roughly 150 or 160 people that work at Ava Labs in the US. It will be very difficult to tell these people to try to move because what they want to do is impossible in the US.
SARAH KREPS: Well, thanks, John, for that industry perspective. I wonder, taking a step back here, Jason, whether we could talk a little bit about the Genesis of this because this current IRS interpretation is of a law that was passed two years ago. Could you talk a little bit more-- this was in the IIJA. What aspect of this is now being interpreted? Can you do a somewhat deeper dive on this?
JASON SCHWARTZ: Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it. So first, very, very basic concept. When I sell stock through my broker, let's say, JP Morgan, I don't have direct access to the gross proceeds from my sale of that stock, right? JP Morgan sells the stock on my behalf. And in order to know how much gain or loss I had, JP Morgan has to tell me.
So there is a 1099 reporting regime that people who have ever sold stock are familiar with, where JP Morgan sends a 1099 to me and a copy to the IRS. And that 1099 says, OK, Jason, here's your amount realized on your sale. Also includes my basis if JP Morgan has that information. Really important in the private ledger space, which is the historical space that has existed forever preblockchain.
Now, Congress realized in 2021 that there's no similar regime for crypto or at least that the regime for crypto is unclear. Centralized exchanges, your Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini, et cetera, did not have an explicit requirement to provide 1099s to people when those exchanges sold crypto on their behalves. And even if they wanted to, some of these exchanges actually do provide 1099s but are unclear on which 1099 to use because there are several different series of 1099s, what exactly to report, how to report it, et cetera.
So Congress determined, in connection with the IIJA, to modify the tax code to explicitly say, hey, digital assets are also subject to 1099 reporting. And digital asset brokers should do that reporting. Now, IRS, go and do your thing, define digital asset and define broker. In connection with that modification, the Senate in the legislative history explicitly told the IRS do not interpret this provision to change the traditional understanding of what a broker was.
So that's really important, right? And a broker has always been, always, someone who either acts as an agent, so like a custodian or someone who's selling stock or bonds or other financial instruments on my behalf, or a principal whose business is to trade directly against me because JP Morgan might just trade directly against me. In which case, they would also provide a 1099 to me. But it's always been someone with a customer relationship.
Now, what did the IRS do in response to this rule? In August of this year, they issued proposed regulations interpreting broker. And notwithstanding Congress's explicit desire-- and, by the way, the plain language of the statute, which says that you're supposed to expand 1099 reporting to someone who effectuates transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person, so effectuates, causes a transfer of digital assets on someone's behalf.
Notwithstanding all of that, the proposed regulations do two things. Number one, they define digital asset as anything tokenized. So not just your typical Bitcoin or Ether or tokenized stocks and bonds, but also NFTs. Even though the analog in the real world, like collectibles, is not subject to 1099 reporting. Also, stablecoins, even though cash is not subject to 1099 reporting.
So that's number one. They created an extremely broad definition of what is subject to reporting. And then they created an extremely broad, really limitless definition of who has to report. And that limitless definition takes the word effectuates in the statute, someone who effectuates transfers of digital assets, and basically says, OK, we're going to define that to mean anyone who directly or indirectly effectuates. And indirectly is totally limitless.
So it includes website developers. If a website, they say, facilitates someone's sale of digital assets, then the website is a broker. Wallets, so when I sell digital assets directly from my wallet, like if I use my wallet to buy a coffee, digital assets are just like digital cash. If I use my wallet to just spend crypto or stablecoins on a cup of coffee, the payment processor and the wallet are both brokers.
So basically, software developers now, even though they have nothing to do with the actual sale, other than that they created software that I use to make the sale, they're brokers. And why are they brokers according to the regs? Because they could have changed the nature of their business to demand my name, address, and Social Security number as a condition to my using their software.
So in other words, any website or wallet or other software that involves crypto would have to geo block out anyone who doesn't provide them with their names, addresses, and Social Security numbers. And then they have to collect that information, somehow store it privately, securely, even though many of these software developers are leanly-staffed fintechs, right, and then report every sale and other transfer to the IRS and to me. So literally, I would have to KYC in order to buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks using a stablecoin.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
JOHN WU: That is so detailed and very helpful, Jason. As an operator and a builder, I focus on products. So I don't have the benefit of understanding the granular details like you just described. But I have a benefit of looking at it from a different perspective as a builder and an innovator. From a top down perspective, listening to all that, it's very clear to me that legislation in general, regulation in general is about intermediaries.
And this entire space is the antithesis of that. It is open permissionless, and it's not about intermediaries. It's about removing intermediaries. So to force-fit a framework on how to legislate when the entire space is about a different ethos, that's going to be a challenge, in fairness, to the legislators and regulators. But also, it may miss the point.
JASON SCHWARTZ: I think that's exactly right. What the regulations would do, if finalized in their current form, is not take intermediaries and say, hey, intermediaries, you now have to report, which I think is clearly what Congress intended. But instead take people who are clearly not intermediaries and say, hey, you have to become an intermediary.
JOHN WU: It recentralizes.
JASON SCHWARTZ: Yes.
JOHN WU: And again, the spirit and the ethos of this is self-sovereignty, having decentralization so everyone feels more empowered. This has been happening already in Web2 with seven large companies basically controlling a decent amount of the S&P market cap, as well as everyone's individual lives. This was one way to give power back to the individual as well as the young innovator and the entrepreneur. But this law will completely stymie that.
JASON SCHWARTZ: And it's also really important to think about just how broad the regulations are, in that they effectively give the IRS authority. The IRS is giving itself authority to treat anyone it wants as a broker because it's frankly impossible to determine the limitations of these regulations. And I can't stress that enough. What does it mean to directly or indirectly effectuate a transaction?
The regulations don't provide any guidance on any governors of indirectly, which means, arguably, a smartphone manufacturer is a broker if the IRS wants it to be. Google is a broker, Yahoo Finance is a broker because all of these things facilitate, indirectly effectuate a transaction and, in theory, could have requested your Social Security number as a precondition to your using them.
So imagine all of these information honeypots now. One, you have to question whether this is even constitutional, right? But let's assume the regulations are finalized in their current form. It means you really can't Google, how do I effectuate a crypto transaction without Google having a block window and saying, oh now, Jason, you have to give your name, address, and Social Security number and tell us whether you use this information to actually do a transaction because we're concerned that we're helping you indirectly effectuate a transaction. It's really unconscionable.
SARAH KREPS: So just a quick thing because, Jason and I both mentioned the IIJA, which is the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. I just wanted to clarify that. But one other thing I wanted to ask is, so we've talked about this comment period that is coming to an end on November 13. What is plausible-- so we've talked about the concerns that we have? What's actually plausible that could come out of the comment period that could shift the IRS interpretation? Is there precedent for public comments actually changing interpretation? Yeah, and how should we think about this?
JASON SCHWARTZ: Yeah, there is. So as I mentioned, the Administrative Procedure Act does not require the IRS to accept comments or implement comments. But it does require them to consider and respond to every significant comment made. And typically, the way the IRS does that is in connection with finalizing regulations it issues what's called a preamble, effectively like an essay explaining what comments were made and what the IRS thinks about the comments. In theory, it could just list out the comments and say, we considered and rejected this comment.
However, there is lots of precedent for the government, and particularly the IRS, which historically has been a really thoughtful agency. I have a lot of respect for the people who work there-- considering comments and taking them to heart. So far, this proposal has garnered a lot of attention. People have been writing in. Community members have been writing in. I've written in. Look, if you're concerned about jobs in the US and the US's ability to lead on innovation, you write in to the IRS.
And it's very easy to do so. There are a number of organizations that have actually made available AI tools that help even nonlawyers, even non-tax lawyers write in. One such tool that I'm particularly fond of is available at TreasuryRaid.LeXpunK.Army. LeXpunK is a loose conglomerate of lawyers, accountants, technologists. They created this AI tool that has read and digested the proposed regulations.
It gives you a dropdown menu of different concerns that you might raise. You can also fill in your own concern. You can choose the tone, and then it links you to the comment submission window. I highly encourage anyone who is at all concerned about these regulations-- and frankly, anyone who's concerned about the US and innovation in the US should be concerned about these regulations-- to visit that website and submit a comment. You have until November 13. Again, it's TreasuryRaid.LeXpunK.Army.
SARAH KREPS: So one other thing procedurally, so the IIJA was also euphemistically referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Is there at this point any accountability from Congress to step back in? It seems like the IRS is appropriating a fair amount of power with this. Is there any accountability mechanism back from Congress to say, you've taken this in a direction that we didn't envision?
JASON SCHWARTZ: I don't know the answer to that. I think more likely is that, if the regulations are finalized in their current form, they'd be subject to a legal challenge in court first. Congress can, of course, revise the statute, pass a technical revision that even further clarifies that effectuates really means effectuates. But short of that, the IRS has interpretive authority. And I think they're going far beyond interpretation. But that's where we're at right now.
SARAH KREPS: Susan, I'm curious, as a lawyer, what do you think of this lawsuit idea?
SUSAN JOSEPH: So I think it's entirely possible, in fact, very likely that you would see a big challenge under the Administrative Procedures Act, which likely would make its way up to the Supreme Court, who is very not friendly to agencies overstepping their charter, so to speak. So I think that there's a very good likelihood, but that sort of goes through the courts. And that does take a while.
On top of that, if it really does impact companies like Google or any other-- Yahoo Finance, et cetera-- I would imagine that there would be a fair amount of litigation coming from that end. And certainly, there would be a class action lawyer bonanza, I would think, on this. So I think that this triggers a whole meltdown or jobs for lawyers, if you want to look at it like that.
And I also want to step back too though and kind of a separate issue that Jason brought up where whether or not it's constitutional. You have to look at what the surveillance mechanism is. Do I want to buy surveillance coffee because that's essentially what you're doing when you're telling Starbucks or a diner if you accept a stablecoin.
You now have to KYC, or know your customer and ask me for my name, my address, my Social Security number, and any other thing just to process surveilled coffee. I think that that is really outrageous. And I would definitely see a number of constitutional challenges on that. And by the way, any lawyers that might want to do that, I'd be happy to weigh in for you.
JASON SCHWARTZ: It's also worth just pointing out, for those who don't know, if I go to a website involving crypto, the website has literally no reason to know, truly no reason to know who I am or even whether I engage in a relevant transaction, even a website that is a marketplace. All it does is enable people to connect with each other.
The regulations explicitly carve out in real life marketplaces. So a stock exchange itself is not a broker under current regulations. Craigslist marketplace, Facebook marketplace, they're not brokers. Flea markets are not brokers, right? It's very, very strange for the IRS to nevertheless say, hey, we're going to treat a crypto-related marketplace as a broker.
So I think I'm just illustrating just how far these regulations go. In addition, there's been a lot of bullishness on crypto relating to these potential ETF approvals. The regulations also would require many ETFs to somehow, not just 1099 people when they sell their ETF shares-- so brokers, if I sell my ETF shares through JP Morgan, JP Morgan has to give me a 1099, which again is uncontroversial.
But somehow, they would also have to figure out a way to give me a 1099 for the underlying Bitcoin or Ether or whatever the crypto is, which could be highly problematic, two sets of 1099s. Frankly, it's not even clear to me how financial institutions would comply with that requirement.
So look, all industry participants within crypto, I think, are up in arms over these proposed regulations. But I think it is important to understand that this goes beyond crypto. This effectively enables the IRS to treat as a broker anyone it wants to kill really. And in that sense, bringing it back to the constitutional argument, there is this-- I think that these proposed regulations very possibly violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.
The third party doctrine cases under the Fourth Amendment, I think, do not go so far as to enable the IRS to just deputize anyone it wants to collect information. But the regulations are also void for vagueness and, therefore, violate the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution because they effectively give the IRS unfettered authority to just go after anyone it wants to treat as a broker.
And really, any technology firms, including smartphone manufacturers and web browsers. And really, internet service providers should really be shaking in their boots seeing these proposed regulations, even if they don't currently deal directly with crypto.
SARAH KREPS: John, it seems like this would have a huge impact on startups and innovation just because of the time and cost involved with compliance. Is that your sense as well?
JOHN WU: Absolutely, it's the operational cost to service this, the time it would cost individuals who want to focus on building the product. Now they have to be experts, either in tax or what a definition of a broker is, if you will. The worst part about this is ultimately it still benefits the large because the tax and the time it takes can be absorbed by a large player. So maybe if I'm Google or if I am BlackRock I actually want this because they will be the only survivors who can weather this.
And new innovation will be completely pushed offshore. New jobs will be created offshore. And it's still ironic that this all started because of a Jobs Act. This is actually the opposite of a Jobs Act in the US. And so there's no doubt this only gets things more centralized and allows scale players to operate. That's assuming they want to in this space after this.
JASON SCHWARTZ: So just to put real numbers on that, the IRS recently-- someone from the IRS recently said at a conference that they anticipate that the number of new 1099s annually filed under these proposed regulations would be 8 billion. Currently, at least as of 2020, which is the latest data that we have, the entire universe of 1099s, like dividends, interest, gross proceeds, et cetera, is 3.2 billion, right?
SARAH KREPS: I don't see how this math adds up. It just would be an enormous burden.
JASON SCHWARTZ: I don't even know how the IRS would process that.
SARAH KREPS: That's what I mean, how they would even process it. That's why I think this is really more of a play to just kill innovation than to actually help taxpayers. In addition, the IRS's own math in the preamble to the proposed regulations estimates a cost of $9.40 per 1099-DA So we're talking-- and they give some numbers as to how many brokers they think would be affected.
Just using their numbers, we're talking a cost to each broker of $14.9 million per year. Again, we're talking like leanly-staffed startups, right? Almost $15 million per year, not including startup costs. Or in the aggregate, $75.2 billion a year. The equivalent of nearly 600,000 new full time jobs just to do compliance.
SARAH KREPS: There we go. We get to the jobs part of the JOBS Act right there.
JASON SCHWARTZ: Right, right, kind of perverse, right?
JOHN WU: And that's also assuming that the trajectory and the growth of the industry continues at this pace, not assuming that all the jobs-- there will be no market for this. And the jobs will move offshore. And there is 0 to collect.
JASON SCHWARTZ: That's the thing. It's just not possible, right? It's just not possible for someone who hosts a website. Look, I can host a website. It's not possible for someone who hosts a website to spend $15 million a year. And by the way, I actually think that those numbers are probably optimistic because the preamble says that those numbers are based on people who are currently brokers, so like your JP Morgans, and your Bank of Americas, et cetera, people who already have systems in place to prepare 1099s.
But you're talking about capturing people who have no systems in place, no reason to have systems in place, no experience collecting and safeguarding information. Really, if these proposed regulations are finalized, that's just it. People won't be able to comply. And what we'd be left with, if anything, is a few very large players, just a small number of very large players, who serve as the gateway to all of digital assets. So you're effectively just recentralizing something that's supposed to be digital cash, right?
SARAH KREPS: And you're also not following through on the promise of making financial services more available to people because you're creating even more barriers. Last I looked, there was no VC that was funding a seed or series A with an extra $1.5 million for compliance.
[LAUGHTER]
So it's just--
SARAH KREPS: Yeah, that's a great point, equity arguments and accessibility as well.
JASON SCHWARTZ: Yeah.
SARAH KREPS: So I feel like this has been a great session, bringing together the legal perspective, industry, and university academic perspectives. I am a realist, but I also am an optimist. And sometimes those don't go together.
But I want to end on an optimistic note and try to understand or suss out from you how-- so we know, setting aside what we've been talking about here, what would you like to see in terms of the US supporting innovation in the crypto space? So can we end on a positive, an upbeat note about the future of crypto and how the US, if it's trying to be promotional about it, how it would go about doing that.
JOHN WU: So I'll let Susan and Jason discuss how regulation can be done in an optimistic way. But from a builder and technology perspective, I think what you have immediately would be obviously a deluge of jobs out of the US for sure. And you won't collect any taxes. And so it'll be detrimental. But I think in the long run they will go to places like Singapore or parts of Europe. And I'm already seeing it in my daily business, the partnerships that we're signing up, the velocity's far greater in Asia and in Europe already.
But in the long run, there are things that people can do from a technology perspective to solve some of these issues. Ava Labs is already working on what we call it an NTT. It's like an NFT. It's a nontransferable token, which contains your PII and your identity. So maybe it's the case where, that Starbucks example, where you can obfuscate your detailed information. But that token, which is validated, has your information. And that can be the thing that allows you to get that coffee in a seamless way.
There will be other ways where people will create what they call private tokens, where they have the functionality of audit within the token itself. And so it's based on the key you have. So you can show it in terms of providing the transaction data. So as a technologist, there will be ways to address this, but that will be far into the future and after many jobs have moved offshore. And a competitive lead in this space will not be in the US.
SARAH KREPS: Thank you, John. Jason?
JASON SCHWARTZ: Yeah, the IRS has a really great opportunity here to lead. And I think, the personnel at the IRS are really, really smart. Again, I've spoken with them about substantive issues relating to digital assets. And I've found them to be very engaged. It's really unfortunate that we have this regulatory package that addresses reporting of digital asset transactions that are fairly esoteric, right, like decentralized finance and whatnot, before we even have rules relating to those transactions.
So that's another thread that we didn't really explore in this conversation. But just for background, we tax lawyers don't even know how many very basic transactions are treated from a US tax perspective. Rather than focusing on killing the industry, it would be wonderful if the IRS could issue some guidance on how very basic transactions are treated.
In the meantime, I think it is important for 1099 reporting to exist for centralized entities, right? I still need a 1099 from Coinbase or Kraken or Gemini if they sell tokens on my behalf because those tokens are not being sold on a blockchain. They're being sold within a private ledger maintained by those centralized entities.
So I think it would be wonderful if the regulations were finalized insofar as they apply to centralized entities. And maybe the IRS could start a real dialogue with market participants on how best to use blockchain technology instead of a form that's existed since 1917 to actually determine people's tax liability from self-custodied transactions. And that might include just looking at the blockchain. It's really important to realize that everything is public on a blockchain, right?
So if the IRS has-- if a centralized exchange were to report to the IRS the wallet into which I withdraw my tokens, the self-custody wallet into which I withdraw my tokens, then the IRS can just use very simple software, which already exists by the way, to track my tax liability from transactions that I do in self-custody. I use that software to prepare my own taxes every year, right?
I plug in my wallet address into Token Tax or Crypto Tax Calculator or what have you. And it tells me what my gain or loss is. There is no reason to have a 1099 regime for self-custody transactions when everything is public on the blockchain already. The only reason would be to kill innovation and blockchain innovation specifically within the United States.
So I think, again, it would be really easy for the IRS to work with the industry instead of against it and continue to collect taxes and help taxpayers by enacting a reporting regime for centralized players and beginning a dialogue on the substantive tax treatment of basic DeFi transactions, wrapping, bridging, liquidity provision, et cetera, to actually provide substantive guidance on how those transactions are treated. And then also put out a request for comments on how best to use blockchain tech to determine people's tax liabilities.
I will note, just my last note is this has already begun at least at the legislative level. A few months ago, the Senate Finance Committee put out a request for comments on the taxation of digital assets. They got lots of really good comments. I actually assisted DeFi Education Fund and Polygon in providing comments. There were a lot of other groups that are heavily involved in blockchain tech, both traditional finance and decentralized finance that provided comments. And it's really unfortunate that the IRS isn't doing something similar.
SARAH KREPS: Susan, let's give you the last word, yep.
SUSAN JOSEPH: So I watched what's going on in the House and the Senate. And I see that there's definitely a movement and bills in play to try and define this industry to give the US a competitive advantage. It's unfortunate that agencies, some of them, would prefer to go after this industry through enforcement rather than talking to the industry and creating rules that can effectuate it.
I wonder at what point that we look at it and say, oh, whoops, we let all of our innovation go overseas. You have a very painful example of innovation overseas in FTX. For whatever you thought of it, we all know that there's a guilty verdict. The fact of the matter is that was offshore, and people got hurt. And lots of people got hurt.
So I'd prefer that we have legislators and regulators who try and work with us because it's not like we don't want to be here. We absolutely want to be here. All of us are from the USA on this call, and we are promoting USA business. So we would love to work with everybody who wants to work with us. But being slapped down and backdoored isn't an effective way to really make the industry flourish and the potential economic gains happen.
And I think that's really important to note because mostly we don't talk about this in terms of potential economic gains and jobs. And I think that those are critical factors that the US has to contend with. And if we want to stay on the cutting edge of being competitive, we need to make sure that we are able to facilitate that. Awhile back there was a proposal from the SEC, which was never acted on, to create kind of a lab, a trial period for people to try and create their businesses for two years.
Whether or not you agree with that approach, that was at least a positive approach from a regulator, again, never enacted. But those kinds of things are really things that would help us move forward. And that's what I want to see, and I am encouraged to see what is happening in the House and the Senate. But yet, you don't want all of their efforts to fall on their face when a backdoor agency can come-- and I'm saying using a backdoor-- and basically slice the industry at its knees.
SARAH KREPS: Well, I think we will leave it there. Thank you, Susan, John, and Jason. We appreciate all of your thoughtful analysis. Thanks, everyone, for joining us.
SUSAN JOSEPH: Thank you.
JOHN WU: Thanks.
Cornell Crypto Policy and AI Lab Meet To Discuss How The IRS' Proposed Regulations on Digital Assets Could Be Catastrophic For The US
This panel of experts will discuss potential impacts on the United States economy of the IRS’s proposed regulation.
Featured: Sarah Kreps, Government Professor and head of Tech Policy Institute at Cornell,
