Matt West, a DeFi strategist, and a Democratic congressional candidate believes there is still time to amend the US infrastructure bill, which President Biden signed into law on November 15. The bill passed into law without amendments to the broad provisions that could introduce stricter reporting requirements on crypto network validators and software developers.
In an interview, West said President Biden has only signed the $1 trillion (£0.74 trillion) infrastructure bill. However, it has not yet taken effect, and this offers the crypto space a chance to push back. While he supports the bill, West found fault with section 6050II of the bipartisan legislation, which makes failure to report crypto transactions a criminal offense.
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According to him, the section does not make sense, seeing as the new rules would require NFT sellers to know the tax IDs and social security numbers of potential buyers. West noted that such policies are invasive, adding that members of Congress are legislating matters they do not understand.
To this end, he urged members of Congress from leading political parties to get some education on the issues they might be overlooking and consider introducing proper legislation.
West added that,
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 don’t really make sense.
Lofty ambitions
This news comes after West announced that he would run for Oregon’s 6th Congressional District on October 12. He will contend with Lorette Smith and Derry Jackson in the Democratic primary, set for May 17, 2022. If elected, West vows to fight for an amendment to another bill that undoes the co-signed work.
Before this, he entered the EVEOnline hackathon in 2015 and won the Yearn award alongside his team member for their Hedrick vaults strategy. Ever since winning the award, West has been working part-time as a strategist at Yearn. He works full-time as an engineer at Intel. With running for Congress consuming a considerable amount of time, West took a break from working at Yearn.
Meanwhile, the number of pro-crypto leaders is increasing steadily, with New York City mayor-elect Eric Adams vowing to make NYC the next crypto hub. Although he has not yet taken office, his crypto efforts saw CityCoins launch NYCCoin, a cryptocurrency similar to MiamiCoin (MIA), in the past week.
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