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Why the IRS may take it easy on crypto

Hello and welcome to Protocol | Fintech! This Tuesday: A kind of crypto tax relief, Fundbox CEO's career advice and a surprising headliner for Dogepalooza.
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The latest twist in the battle over crypto brings good news to all the bitcoin miners and blockchain coders out there: The taxman may let you slide, after all.
The proposed infrastructure bill rocked the crypto world with a plan to require "brokers" to report crypto transactions to the IRS — with a definition written broadly enough to sweep in miners, node operators and software developers who might have no idea who's swapping crypto through them.
Now, the Treasury Department is reportedly about to unveil a narrower definition of "brokers" — and it will exclude those who are building and sustaining the blockchains that support cryptocurrencies.
Is this the final word on the crypto tax debate? The Bloomberg report was sourced to "a Treasury official" who did not speak on the record but promised that a formal announcement was forthcoming.
But the crypto confusion may drag on for years. Crypto taxation is just one small wrinkle in the ambitious infrastructure bill. Comprehensive crypto regulation is a long ways away.
"Be thankful I don't take it all." The Beatles tune — "If you drive a car, I'll tax the street" — may not define the IRS's approach to crypto. "It is not unusual for the agencies to come up with operational definitions when legislation is ambiguous," Parlour said. That's another form of tax relief.
— Ben Pimentel
Expanding to Asia can be difficult, but Singapore is here to help. The Singapore Economic Development Board's guide to setting up in Singapore has all the information you need to find the right partners, talent, and connections to succeed in Asia.
How buying a bank turned LendingClub around. CEO Scott Sanborn explains how the fintech pioneer's bold decision to buy Radius Bank paid off big time.
What was your first foray into the world of fintech?
Back in 2003, in my second week as a Google product manager, I was assigned to a team that was working to help the company go public by addressing deficiencies with its financial systems and processes that had been flagged by auditors. I learned a lot about financial systems, including payment processing, and that eventually led me to become Google's first product director of billing and payments.
What fintech sector is most overrated right now?
After the success of companies like Afterpay and Affirm, "BNPL" has become the new "AI" — mostly a buzzword slapped on as a label to make businesses look attractive. More amusingly, investors are actually responding to BNPL labels without considering first principles — profitability, growth and defensibility.
What was your biggest career mistake?
I learned the hard way that being nice and being kind are two very different things. As a "young" manager, I would hold back in difficult conversations and soften my direct feedback, for fear of hurting the other person's feelings. But ultimately, by trying to be nice, I was not doing the kind thing, which would be to help someone grow by providing them the critical feedback they needed.
Expanding to Asia can be difficult, but Singapore is here to help. The Singapore Economic Development Board's guide to setting up in Singapore has all the information you need to find the right partners, talent, and connections to succeed in Asia.
That's the average valuation multiple on 2022 sales for Coinbase, PayPal, Square and Robinhood, compared to 7x for Schwab and 3x for Capital One and Ally Financial.
Correction: An earlier version had the wrong first name for Makara CEO Jesse Proudman.
Thanks for reading — see you Friday.
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