Coin Center

📜Opening brief filed in @LewellenMichael's appeal for declaratory judgement that non-custodial software development is not money transmission and not a crime. 🇺🇸Coin Center supports his fight in the courts because promises from the admin are not enough, because Congress has yet to act (PASS CLARITY WITH THE BRCA!), and America is supposed to be a country of laws not men. ⚖️Lewellen is asking the 5th Circuit to tell us what the law of money transmission is. We should not need to rely on promises or the bad faith prosecutions of Tornado and Samourai devs in the SDNY to discover if software development is a crime.

The Coin Center Annual Dinner will be on Oct 6. Get your tickets and sponsorships in now. It sells out every year.

As I testified a couple of weeks ago, there is a fundamental mismatch between current IRS guidance on block rewards and how crypto networks actually operate. My recent blog continues our push in Congress, the courts, and with the admin to correct this.

Congress must understand: Block rewards are newly created property, not income. Some proposals merely defer income tax treatment for miners and stakers without doing anything about the underlying misconception coincenter.org/congress-must-…

A modern AML framework should reward institutions that can verify relevant facts with less data, fewer honeypots, and stronger privacy protections. coincenter.org/comment-to-fin…

Coin Center has filed a response to FinCEN and OFAC concerning AML/CFT programs and sanctions compliance for stablecoin issuers. We urge the agencies to do the following: 1. Recognize that overcollection of sensitive customer information can increase cybercrime, fraud, and downstream money laundering risks, undermining AML/CFT efforts and Americans’ privacy and security. 2. Permit issuers to use privacy-preserving digital identity tools where they produce auditable compliance outputs while minimizing data collection from direct customer onboarding. 3. Preserve the boundary between primary-market activity and secondary-market P2P transfers such that AML/CFT obligations do not go so far as to require public blockchain surveillance or the construction of identity-linked transaction dossiers, nor require issuers to independently adjudicate and freeze assets based on probabilistic analysis. 4. Use the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to guide the final rule in avoiding warrantless surveillance and the deprivation of Americans’ property without due process. coincenter.org/comment-to-fin…

Commissioner @HesterPeirce lists "code is speech" as the first principle guiding her thinking sec.gov/newsroom/speec…

Without the BRCA, Clarity becomes bill that helps the largest and most regulated businesses while leaving the builders of free and open infrastructure out in the cold. coincenter.org/the-brca-is-re…

Stripping the BRCA from Clarity would not make the bill tougher on industry. It would not address ethics concerns. All it would achieve is hurting open source developers. coincenter.org/the-brca-is-re…

Congress wants to extend wash-sale rules to crypto. Doing so would make everyday crypto use, DeFi, and multi-wallet tracking nearly unworkable. Summary of the issue in Tax Notes:

Coin Center is encouraged by the advancement of the Clarity Act through the Senate Banking Committee with the BRCA included. As it heads to the floor, there may be a push to make concessions; the BRCA cannot be one of them. coincenter.org/the-brca-survi…

HUGE. Looks like we got a non-partisan vote out of Senate Banking with the BRCA still intact. I'm thrilled. The last minute compromise reflects Coin Center's analysis from last January, there were some steps forward since then and then back but we are feeling very comfortable.

Our letter in support of passing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act and with it the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, which we have championed since 2018.

We just published a new tax report by the inimitable @abesutherland addressing a topic that has not received much attention to-date. Some recent tax bills have included provisions applying the wash-sale rule to crypto. Abe walks through why that would be a mistake.

The Wash-Sale Rule Would Break Crypto Tax Compliance By walking through detailed real-world scenarios, this report demonstrates that a crypto wash-sale rule would undermine compliance, distort ordinary economic activity, and impose costs far exceeding any potential revenue gains. New report: coincenter.org/the-wash-sale-…

Code is Speech. New report: coincenter.org/software-is-sp…

Michael Lewellen is appealing his case to the 5th Circuit. He faces a credible threat of prosecution for publishing privacy software and he deserves to know whether money transmission licensing laws apply. coincenter.org/continuing-the…

Michael Lewellen has appealed Lewellen v. Garland to the Fifth Circuit, with Coin Center’s support. The DOJ had his case tossed by arguing there’s no “credible threat” to Michael, pointing to a memo promising not to target non-custodial developers. ...Even though they are actively going after non-custodial devs right now. Michael is an impossible situation. the only way to test those promises is to publish his code and risk prosecution. coincenter.org/continuing-the…

Coin Center’s analysis of Treasury’s GENIUS report: In short, we emphasize privacy and self-sovereignty in digital identity, and explain why Congress should avoid expanding the Bank Secrecy Act and instead focus on CLARITY. coincenter.org/treasurys-geni…

In a letter to the SEC, Coin Center suggests the agency: 1) Prioritize rulemaking over case by case no-action letters 2) Consider whether open blockchains obviate the need for transfer agents altogether (and to resist rent seeking state-mandated intermediation)