The talk of the weekend was all about the infrastructure bill in the U.S as there were 2 key amendments being considered in relation to the cryptocurrency part of the bill. Unfortunately, there’s a high chance that neither of these amendments will actually end up going through and the original language in the bill will probably remain (though the fight isn’t over just yet). In spite of all of this, I actually don’t think this infrastructure bill drama has been bearish for crypto - I think it simply means that we’re now in the big leagues.
The amount of attention that the crypto industry has gotten over the last week due to this infrastructure bill is staggering. This isn’t just attention from those already in crypto - this is attention coming from media sources that would normally never cover our industry (such as Politico that I linked to above). After all, this is a “must-pass” infrastructure bill that will fund almost a trillion dollars worth of infrastructure work for the entirety of the United States - and it’s being held up by cryptocurrency regulations that shouldn’t even be in this bill in the first place! It’s pretty incredible that our industry has gotten to this point already - I honestly thought it would’ve taken a few more years before we started getting this sort of attention.
On that note, up until now, most politicians regarded the crypto industry as just something “on the fringe” that needed to be dealt with like an annoying fly but now that it’s making national headlines in the U.S senators are realising that this is an issue that many American citizens care deeply about. I honestly think they were completely blind-sided by all of the people who called and emailed them to let them know that they wanted to wording around crypto in the infrastructure bill changed (or removed completely).
Crypto is a massive opportunity for the United States (and the world) and I believe any country that too heavily regulates this industry or out-right bans it will come to regret that decision very quickly. Not only would that country lose all of the economic growth generated by crypto but they would also miss out on a revolution that promises to be as big as the internet. Could you imagine the U.S regulating the internet this heavily in the 90’s - if they did, all of the massive internet-native companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and more would’ve been created overseas causing the U.S to miss out on an insane amount of economic growth.
I think at the end of the day these regulations were able to be pushed in because most politicians simply don’t understand the crypto industry. Though now that the genie is out of the bottle, I bet a lot of these politicians are trying to learn as much as they can about this industry as they are now fully aware that it’s a core issue for their constituents. I think this can only be a positive thing for the industry and will lead to a much more varied and nuanced regulatory landscape for crypto in the U.S instead of these black and white “ban it all” attempts that we’ve had to deal with over the last few months and years.
All in all, I think that we’ll look back on this event in a few years and point to as the day that crypto entered the global zeitgeist. No longer is our ecosystem something on the fringe - we’re building the future of finance and the web, new human coordination tools, innovating in gaming/collectibles along with so much more - and there’s really no stopping this incredibly exciting movement.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
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All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.