Infrastructure Bill can still be remedied: DeFi dev turned Congress candidate
Matt West, DeFi developer by night and a Democratic candidate by day, believes there is still time to remedy the anti-crypto provisions of the U.S. Infrastructure Bill.
The controversial United States Infrastructure Bill was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Monday, with the legislation passing without amendments made to the broad provisions that could impose stringent reporting requirements on crypto network validators and software developers.
However, decentralized finance strategist turned Democratic congressional candidate Matt West believes there is still time to push back.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, West said, “My understanding of this bill is that it has been signed, but it hasnt taken effect yet.”
The crypto community has taken particular issue with section 6050II of the bipartisan legislation, which makes failing to report digital assets transactions a criminal offense.
West, who otherwise supports the bill, said that section 6050I doesnt make “a whole lot of sense,” citing new rules that require NFT sellers to know the tax ID and social security number of potential buyers.
“All these very invasive details,” he said, adding that they are “really indicative of how people in the space are led in Congress are legislating on issues they dont fully understand.”
West called on his fellow congresspeople from both major political parties to “educate themselves on the nuanced issues here that they might not be seeing” and consider regulation carefully.
“There‘s a bunch of people right now in Congress who are trying to pass laws on things they don’t necessarily understand. And because of that, you see regulations that dont really make sense.”
“Cryptocurrency should not be a partisan issue. Its too big for that,” he added.
West announced last month on Oct. 12 that he would be running against Loretta Smith and Derry Jackson in the Democratic primary scheduled for May 17, 2022, for Oregons 6th Congressional District.
If elected, West said he would “fight for an amendment to another bill to undo the work thats been consigned right now.”
In 2020, West entered the ETH Online Hackathon, and his team won the Yearn.finance award for its HEGIC token. Hes been a strategist at Yearn.finance ever since, working part-time during his off-hours while working full-time as an engineer at Intel. He has recently taken a break from Yearn to launch his campaign