“The mandate to collect names, addresses, and transactions of customers means almost every company even tangentially related to cryptocurrency may suddenly be forced to surveil their users.”
The provision sits in the part of a 2,000-page roads bill that pays for everything else. It stretches the tax code’s definition of “broker” to anyone who helps move digital assets. That can sweep in developers and miners who never touch a customer’s money. Nobody debates a surveillance mandate hidden in a highway bill. That is why it went there.