United States-based crypto policy advocacy group Coin Center has followed through with its intention to take the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control, or OFAC, to court over sanctioning cryptocurrenc mixer Tornado Cash. In an Oct. 12 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, lawyers for Coin Center as well as crypto investor David Hoffman, an anonymous human-rights advocate known only as John Doe, and software developer Patrick O’Sullivan filed a complaint against OFAC, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and OFAC director Andrea Gacki. The complaint alleged that sanctioning Tornado Cash was “unprecedented and unlawful” …

Coin Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit blockchain advocacy group, filed a lawsuit against the United States Department of the Treasury for allegedly provisioning an unconstitutional amendment in the controversial infrastructure bill. In an official announcement, Coin Center revealed the filing of a suit against the Treasury Department in federal district court — challenging the enforcement of Section 6050I’s reporting mandate within the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The lawsuit read: “In 2021, President Biden and Congress amended a little-known tax reporting mandate. If the amendment is allowed to go into effect, it will impose a mass surveillance regime on ordinary …

Nonprofit blockchain advocacy group Coin Center has called the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) proposed redefinition of an “exchange” an “unconstitutional overreach.” The lobby group made the comments in a written response to the SEC’s March 18 Amendments Regarding the Definition of “Exchange”, which details changing the meaning of “exchange” from a “system that brings together the orders” of a security to one that “brings together buyers and sellers.” Bringing together orders, which are things, is very different from bringing together people and Coin Center says the latter is tantamount to coercion. The rule change suggests that Communication Protocol Systems …

United States senators Mark Warner and Kyrsten Sinema, both Democrats from Virginia and Arizona, respectively, have introduced a new amendment to the infrastructure bill that would lessen the burden on cryptocurrency tax reporting for miners and wallet providers. As Perianne Boring reported Saturday afternoon, the senators are endorsing an amendment that would exclude cryptocurrency miners and hardware and software wallet providers from being subject to new tax reporting provisions. The amendment would broaden an earlier update proposed by the same lawmakers, along with Ohio Republican Rob Portman. Senator @MarkWarner and @SenatorSinema have offered a new amendment with tech neutral language. …

Bitcoin may not mean an end to traditional currency and banking, according to research director of Coin Center Peter Van Valkenburgh “I think there are folks in the Bitcoin community who probably make too many noises about how Bitcoin is going to dominate all economic systems and nobody will be using dollars anymore, and nobody will be using banks anymore, and I think that’s actually a little foolhardy,” Van Valkenburgh said in a Friday interview with the Washington Journal on C-Span. “The fact of the matter is that there’s going to be times when a Bitcoin transaction is what you …

Crypto-focused lobbying groups in Washington, DC are playing an increasingly vital role in reorienting policymakers away from the view that digital currencies are used primarily for illegal transactions. Now, they are preparing for, potentially, their biggest battle yet. The Blockchain Association, an industry trade group representing crypto firms, has added 10 members to its brass since December 2020, bringing its total to 34. Kristin Smith, the group’s executive director, told Bloomberg that the association's members are extremely concerned about federal regulators clamping down on the industry over misplaced fears. “We in the industry think it’s hugely problematic,” she said, adding …

2021 is shaping up to be a generous year for cryptocurrency donations. On Wednesday, Coin Center, the leading cryptocurrency nonprofit in Washington, D.C., announced that it had raised millions in additional funding from high-profile names in the crypto industry. Jerry Brito, Coin Center’s executive director, tweeted that his organization had received enough donations to claim the $1 million in matched contributions from Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest crypto fund manager. Less than three weeks ago, Grayscale announced that it had donated $1 million to the advocacy group and pledged an additional $1 million in matched contributions. A few days later, …

Kraken has pledged $100,000 to Coin Center, a cryptocurrency advocacy group based in Washington D.C. In a blog from the crypto exchange today, Kraken said it had donated the funds to promote Coin Center’s work in educating regulators about digital assets an advancing the rights of crypto users. The exchange said that the advocacy group "has been a vanguard for challenging policies such as the proposed STABLE act as well as recent rushed Financial Crimes Enforcement Network rulemaking." "At a time when misinformation about this new technology remains high, we call on all industry leaders to join us in funding …

The crypto lobby is growing as more firms join the effort to fight rules that attack financial privacy. The Blockchain Association today announced the addition of five new members, with membership now totaling 30 firms. The new members are Uniswap, Blockfi, Fireblocks, CMT Digital and Blockchain Capital. In its tweet announcing the news, the Blockchain Association attributed the rise in membership to its work in presenting an industry response to rules from the United States Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, at the tail end of the Donald Trump administration. The association wrote, "Battling back the FinCEN process …

Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital-asset manager, has pledged $1 million to Coin Center, Washington, D.C.’s most influential cryptocurrency advocacy group — a move it believes will help broaden “foundational knowledge” of the industry. The million-dollar donation was announced Monday in a press release, which also revealed Grayscale’s plan to match contributions to Coin Center through the end of February. Over that period, Grayscale plans to match donations dollar-for-dollar up to an additional $1 million. Grayscale got the inspiration for the donate-and-match program from Kraken, the San Francisco-based exchange that managed to raise over $3 million for Coin Center in …

The crypto lobby seems to be cautiously optimistic about Biden's potential picks to lead the U.S.'s regulatory environment. That is, at least, according to a Thursday discussion hosted by TRM labs, featuring the executive directors of the Blockchain Association and Coin Center — respectively Kristin Smith and Jerry Brito. The pair got into a discussion of who they hope the Biden administration nominates to top regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, given that Janet Yellen seems to be a shoe-in to get the top spot at …

Nonprofit cryptocurrency advocacy group Coin Center has appealed to the community to develop tech-based responses to the COVID-19 pandemic that protect civil liberties and privacy. In a post published on April 8, the center’s director of research, Peter Van Valkenburgh, surveyed recent proposals from the Zcash Foundation for Private Contact Tracing Protocols, as well as progress with Decentralized Identifiers by Microsoft Research. “It's our duty as a community of technologists to be vigilant against the imposition of tracing and identity technologies that could, long term, jeopardize our autonomy and privacy,” Van Valkenburgh wrote. Resisting state overreach Coin Center warns against …