DeFi Unbinding and Tax Illusions: Are Trump's Two New Crypto Cards Still Worth Looking Forward To?
Author: flowie, ChainCatcher
Although the market only rallied for a day due to Trump's strategic reserve declaration, the Trump administration seems to have not given up on playing the crypto card.
Yesterday, two potentially favorable policy shifts for crypto were announced.
First, White House AI and crypto director David Sacks stated on the X platform that the White House will support the Congressional Review Act to repeal the "DeFi Broker Rule."
This morning, the U.S. Senate passed the Congressional Review Act by a vote of 70 to 27 to repeal the DeFi Broker Rule, pending approval from the House of Representatives and signature from President Trump to become law.
Second, Mike Alfred, founder of Alpine Fox LP, revealed on the X platform that at Friday's White House crypto summit, the Trump administration may announce the cancellation of the zero capital gains tax policy on cryptocurrency sales.
If these two policies can be successfully repealed, it will have a significant positive impact on the crypto market. But how feasible are these policies? Especially after experiencing significant ups and downs following Trump's multiple "slogan-style" market rescues, are these policy shifts still worth looking forward to?
The imminent repeal of the "regulatory rules" resisted by 75 companies, DeFi is warming up
The "DeFi Broker Rule" is seen as a heavy blow to crypto at the last moment of the Biden administration.
This rule was issued on December 27 last year and is a regulatory framework initiated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the IRS, aimed at expanding the definition of "broker" to include DeFi within the traditional financial regulatory framework, requiring DeFi platforms to implement compliance measures such as tax reporting, KYC (Know Your Customer), and anti-money laundering.
The rule has faced strong opposition from the crypto industry, with the Blockchain Association filing a lawsuit, and 75 crypto companies, including Coinbase, a16z, and Kraken, jointly sending a letter to Congress calling for its repeal.
The reasons for opposition mainly focus on three aspects:
First is the privacy issue; the rule requires DeFi platforms to collect user information, which exceeds the IRS's statutory authority.
Second is the restriction on U.S. DeFi innovation, as it increases compliance costs for DeFi businesses.
Additionally, there are controversies regarding enforcement; DeFi platforms are mostly decentralized applications, and if traditional financial institutions' compliance requirements are to be enforced, the regulatory scope is also ambiguous. For example, the rule only applies to "front-end service providers" rather than the protocol itself, but how to define "front-end" is contentious.
However, since Trump's administration, this rule, seen as an obstacle to DeFi innovation, has been pushed for repeal.
On February 26, the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means passed a resolution to repeal the rule by a vote of 26 to 16.
This morning, the U.S. Senate passed the resolution to repeal the rule by a vote of 70 to 27, and it is now awaiting a full vote in the House before being submitted to the President for signature to become law. Currently, White House AI and crypto director David Sacks has clearly stated that the White House supports the repeal of this rule.
From the current progress, the likelihood of the DeFi Broker Rule being repealed is very high.
Perhaps influenced by the imminent repeal of the "DeFi Broker Rule," there are signs of recovery in the DeFi sector, especially with tokens from DeFi protocols closely related to U.S. concept coins, the Trump family, and BlackRock showing significant increases.
According to RootData's market segment, as of the time of publication, the 24-hour price increases for AAVE, LINK, UNI, and ONDO are 26.28%, 12.91%, 9.25%, and 9.11%, respectively. (Among them, AAVE's increase is likely influenced not only by the repeal of the "DeFi Broker Rule" but also significantly by its buyback and new token plans.)
The repeatedly "hyped" exemption from capital gains tax on crypto may still be a "pie"
In addition to the repeal of the "DeFi Broker Rule," the cancellation of the zero capital gains tax policy on cryptocurrency sales may be even more anticipated.
The zero capital gains tax on cryptocurrency sales can be simply understood as not taxing the profit portion of cryptocurrency transactions. For example, if a crypto user buys Bitcoin, sells it after a price increase, the profit does not incur tax.
Different countries have different policy differences; Singapore provides exemptions and only levies a 17% income tax on cryptocurrencies deemed as business income.
In the U.S., currently, if one profits from buying and selling cryptocurrencies, capital gains tax must be paid. The tax rate varies based on the holding period: within one year, it is taxed at ordinary income tax rates, ranging from 10% to 37%. For holdings over one year, the rate is relatively lower, with a maximum of 20%.
Additionally, apart from buying and selling, mining, staking, and using cryptocurrencies to pay wages are also subject to income tax.
For both crypto users and businesses, canceling this tax would undoubtedly reduce costs. For the U.S., sacrificing this portion of tax revenue could attract crypto projects and capital inflow, promoting it to become the "crypto capital."
However, compared to the extremely high probability of repealing the "DeFi Broker Rule," the announcement from the Trump administration on Friday regarding the cancellation of the zero capital gains tax policy on cryptocurrency sales is highly uncertain in terms of authenticity and implementation.
Mike Alfred, the founder of Alpine Fox LP and the original source of the news, has deleted the tweet. Adam Cochran, a partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, also stated that he was repeatedly blocked while trying to verify the authenticity with Mike.
This is not the first time the "cancellation of the zero capital gains tax on cryptocurrency sales" has been hyped.
In November last year, Trump proposed eliminating the capital gains tax on cryptocurrencies issued by U.S. companies, which led to significant increases in many altcoins. In January this year, Trump's second son, Eric Trump, again claimed that U.S.-based crypto projects (such as XRP and HBAR) would enjoy zero capital gains tax in the future, while non-U.S. projects might face a 30% tax rate.
However, the difficulty of canceling the zero capital gains tax policy on cryptocurrency sales is not low, especially in the short term.
Adam Cochran emphasized that the President cannot bypass Congress to directly amend tax laws. The co-founder of Satoshi Action Fund analyzed back in January that completely eliminating crypto taxes in the short term is unrealistic, but some small changes could be pursued, such as setting a "minimum exemption amount."
John E Deaton, founder of CryptoLawUS, also pointed out that even if U.S.-based projects enjoy zero capital gains tax, how to define "U.S. projects" remains a question.