66 Crypto Organizations Urge Trump for Immediate Tax Clarity and Developer Protections

66 cryptocurrency organizations including Coinbase, Uniswap Foundation, and Blockchain Association delivered a letter to President Donald Trump on Nov. 20 demanding immediate federal agency action on tax clarity, temporary legal protections for DeFi developers, and dismissal of charges against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm.

The coalition outlined specific actions federal agencies can take without congressional approval, according to the letter.

The Solana Policy Institute led the effort alongside major industry players including Block, Paradigm, Multicoin Capital, and the Crypto Council for Innovation.

The letter requests Treasury and IRS publish rules treating staking and mining rewards as self-created property, taxed when sold rather than at creation.

Additional tax demands include clarifying that bridging and wrapping tokens are non-taxable events, applying small-transaction exemptions to exclude gains on purchases up to $600 per transaction, and updating charitable giving rules for digital assets to remove costly appraisal requirements.

Roman Storm Case and Developer Protections

The coalition urged the Department of Justice to dismiss all charges against Roman Storm, the Tornado Cash developer convicted on Aug. 6 on conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

Storm faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, with a jury deadlocking on two additional charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions.

Storm remains free on bail ahead of his sentencing, scheduled for Dec. 18. His legal team argues that developing Tornado Cash is the publication of open-source software protected by the First Amendment, not a financial crime, and is seeking DOJ support to overturn his conviction on appeal.

The letter cites Trump’s pattern of pardoning crypto industry figures, referencing his Oct. 23 pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

Trump later stated in a CBS 60 Minutes interview that he did not know Zhao despite pardoning him, claiming he was told Zhao was a victim of a Biden administration’s “witch hunt.”

Regulatory Framework Demands

The organizations urged the SEC to adopt safe harbor frameworks similar to Commissioner Hester Peirce’s Token Safe Harbor Proposal.

Safe harbors would give token projects a three-year period to decentralize without needing immediate securities registration.

The letter also demands the SEC and CFTC publish rules protecting Americans’ right to self-custody, consistent with Trump’s January executive order.

The coalition called on Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to discontinue its October 2023 proposed rule classifying cryptocurrency mixing services as high-risk for money laundering.

The letter requests FinCEN publish updated rules clarifying that Bank Secrecy Act requirements do not apply to non-custodial blockchain software.

All demands align with recommendations from the President’s Working Group Report on Digital Assets released in July, according to Executive Order 14178.

The executive order established Trump’s policy goal of making the United States the “crypto capital of the world” and created the working group that produced the July report.

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