Recap of Last Week's Battles in the War Between the Centralists and Decentralists
Recap of Last Week's Battles in the War Between the Centralists and Decentralists
Coinbase Holds its Own in Court, IRS Delays Crypto Mandates, 2024 Election Will Decide the Fate of a Central Bank Digital Currency
This past September, I channeled my inner Ayn Rand to publish a piece which depicted how the Decentralists overcame significant obstacles to win the most pivotal war in the history of mankind. You can read it here.
Because the article takes place in the year 2055, people assume it is a work of fiction. Truth be told, it is more of a futuristic biopic of what is actually unfolding, in present day, right before our very eyes.
Today’s great war, which will decide the fate of humanity, has not yet made it to the headlines. And since its battles are not being fought on soil nor on sea, nor with bullets nor bombs, many do not even know it is happening.
But it is.
This covert war is waging between the Centralists and Decentralists in the shadows of the clashes between republicans and democrats, globalists and nationalists, and even amongst artificial and human intelligence.
We're just a few weeks into 2024 and the battlefield has been intensifying.
Although the war is far from over - as the Centralists will stop at nothing to cling to its power - it appears that the Decentralists won a few battles this past week.
DAVID HELD HIS OWN AGAINST GOLIATH AT WEDNESDAY’S COINBASE HEARING
On Wednesday, the SEC and Coinbase faced off in a Southern District of New York courtroom, where Judge Failla is set to decide whether to dismiss the agency’s allegations that Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange that the SEC qualified to go public in 2021, is now suddenly operating illegally.
The fact that, after a 5 hour hearing, Judge Failla did not rule from the bench demonstrates that this case may not be the slam dunk that the SEC anticipated it would be when it filed it in June. I guess it’s too bad, for the regulator, that it didn’t pursue this enforcement action through its constitutionally questionable adjudication process.
During its oral arguments, the SEC, once again, struggled to make the round cryptocurrency peg fit into the square Howey security hole, as the regulator had the Judge questioning why collectibles, like baseball cards, wouldn't constitute securities under the SEC’s power-grabbing assessment.
The odds look good for Coinbase to be granted, at least, a partial dismal. However, even if Judge Failla denies Coinbase's motion to dismiss in its entirety, it wouldn’t be a total loss for the cryptocurrency exchange as the case would simply move forward and head into discovery. And as we learned from the SEC’s embarrassing case against Ripple, the agency is not fond of producing discovery requests - particularly when its internal documents exonerate the defendant.
However, if the Judge dismisses the SEC’s case altogether, it would be a total victory for Coinbase, the entire cryptocurrency industry and, of course, a massive win for the Decentralists.
THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT AND IRS DELAY CRYPTO REPORTING MANDATES THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO GO INTO EFFECT ON JANUARY 1ST
Also, this week, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced that the new tax reporting requirements for businesses and individuals who receive over $10,000 in certain crypto transactions would be delayed until regulations are issued by the Treasury and IRS.
Wow, what a novel concept - actually having regulations established PRIOR to enforcing them!
This filing mandate, that was supposed to have gone into effect on January 1, 2024, was part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act which incorporated a provision requiring anyone who receives $10,000 or more in cryptocurrency, in the course of their trade or business, to make a detailed report, about the transaction, to the IRS within 15 days or risk being found guilty of a felony offense.
The information that the government is demanding is not only illogical to P2P crypto transactions, but also categorically dangerous to individuals at large.
Forcing ordinary Americans to reveal names, social security numbers and home addresses to one another would subject every single American to identity theft or far worse. I mean, could you imagine having to provide your social security number to an Ebay seller in order to purchase a painting?
The constitutionality of the bill’s crypto provisions - which would essentially create a mass surveillance regime on ordinary Americans - is being questioned by crypto think tank, Coin Center, in its lawsuit against the U.S. Treasury Department and the IRS.
According to Coin Center, forcing ordinary people to collect highly intrusive information about other ordinary people, and report it to the government without a warrant, is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. Furthermore, demanding that politically active organizations create and report lists of their donors’ names and identifying information to the government is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
With Coin Center’s case still making its way through the appeal process, this delay is not a major triumph for the Decentralists just yet. However, in my book, anything holding up the Centralists’ fascist agenda is cause for celebration and a gain for the Decentralists.
For updates on the Coin Center action, you should follow Jerry Brito, Executive director of Coin Center, on X at https://twitter.com/jerrybrito.
Additionally, if you want to learn more about your crypto tax reporting obligations, feel free to join us for a complimentary CPE webinar, on January 24th, where experts from EisnerAmper, Bitwave and the CryptoOracle Collective will discuss the latest regulatory developments.
THE 2024 ELECTION WILL DECIDE THE FATE OF A U.S. CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCY
The biggest win for the Decentralists came this week when 2024 presidential frontrunner Donald Trump vowed to never “allow the creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).”
Since a CBDC is the greatest threat to humanity since the atomic bomb, any talk of preventing one is an enormous win for Decentralists.
Trump’s proclamation puts the CBDC issue front and center as it stands in stark contrast to Biden’s March 2023 Executive Order in which Biden placed urgency on the research and development of a potential United States CBDC.
No matter where one stands on the political spectrum, preventing a U.S. CBDC should be a top priority for the simple reason that “a government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”
And a CBDC will enable the government to not only take away everything you have, but also everything you could ever want - all with a mere stroke on a keyboard.
A CBDC is not simply an economic issue. Sure, a CBDC would grant the government the power to manipulate inflation by deleting, at its whim, all of your unspent wages and savings. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.
A CBDC would also give the government absolute dominion over everything you hold dear - your purchases, your retirement, your education, your leisure activities, your healthcare, and yes, even your values. In fact, a CBDC would place your entire existence at the mercy of the government - including the politicians whom you did not vote in and whose ideology you may vehemently oppose.
With a CBDC, the government won't need to abolish the second amendment to leave you without guns. Instead, it could simply program your money to forbid any purchases of guns or ammunition.
If guns aren't your thing, you should be aware that a government-intrusive CBDC could, at some point, be used to suppress something that you do care about.
A CBDC could prevent your elderly loved one from receiving a lifesaving procedure just because the government deems the patient too old.
Or, say you are a pro-choice or a climate activist. A CBDC could, one day, prohibit you from paying for birth control or purchasing solar panels for your home. There may come a day when you awake to find that it was none other than your CBDC vote that effectively took away your ability to choose.
The point is that those commanding the levers of power are in constant flux. Since you won’t always get the commanders you want, it is imperative that you constrain the power of those levers. That is the only way to protect your principles, and why you must vote against a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency.
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