U.S Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was accused of corruption recently for accepting "speaking fees" (bribes) in exchange for attacking the crypto industry. This accusation comes in the wake of a limited disclosure where she admitted to receiving at least $7.2M from Citadel hedge fund and Citi Bank. As someone with a total net worth of $20M, this staggering value is definitely quite suspect. Who knows what kinds of arrangements she has with these various organizations.
Do I think she is corrupt?
Of course she is. All politicians are corrupt by design. You can't climb the politics ladder without getting your hands dirty. It's all about networking and doing favors for the people who are doing favors for you. However, at the same time there is a pretty reasonable explanation that Yellen would be against crypto without having to be paid to think that way.
Yellen is a staunch economic dove (supporting low-interest rates and expansionary monetary policies, valuing low unemployment over keeping inflation low). ... She and her husband, George Akerlof, are both Keynesian economists who believe that economic markets need governmental regulation to function correctly.
Keynesian Economists don't get it.
This old way of thinking simply doesn't mesh with the real world anymore. Once you mix it with crypto it becomes complete nonsense. There's a reason why these "experts" can't even grasp why Bitcoin has value in the first place.
When your entire life's experience depends on Big Government to make everything work correctly, of course crypto libertarianism would make absolutely zero sense. Crytpo is exactly the opposite of everything Keynesian Economics stands for. This is why many economists are more ignorant about crypto than even average Joe's on the street. Their discipline has taught them in such a way that crypto runs contrary to crypto in every way.
So is Janet Yellen corrupt? Yeah... all politicians are by design. Is she accepting bribes in exchange to promote anti-crypto policy? Probably not, as she was already anti-crypto before she got paid by Citidel. The money is just a bonus. Besides, what kind of idiot would publically disclose an obvious bribe? It's not like this information was leaked or hidden in any way.
Senate passes $1.2T infrastructure bill.
The language to modify the definition of a "broker" was not changed despite the proposed Amendments. It will now be voted on in the House. It's hard to say what kind of amendments the House of Representatives will propose, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
The funny thing about all this is that the infrastructure bill alarmism is pure speculation. Everyone is just assuming that simply because miners and programmers theoretically could be considered "brokers" under this language that it will automatically be enforced this way. This assumption doesn't really make a lot of sense. Miners and devs are not being overtly targeted. It's just hard to legally separate these entities because at the heart of crypto is the transference of value.
Just because lawmakers theoretically could try to say that a miner is a broker under this language doesn't mean they would actually try to attempt that nonsense. I mean I wouldn't put it past them but this really all feels like much ado about nothing. Not only is this bill not going to be put into effect until 2023, everything that everyone is saying about it as it relates to crypto is pure speculation and doesn't even really make a lot of sense.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what the regulators do. Crypto is self-regulating, and if it does what it's supposed to do, this infrastructure bill will be nothing compared to the madness that will be coming down the pipe over the next decade.
Crypto threatens pretty much every established industry, as it's primed to replace the entire core of the economy. Those who do not make the transition to crypto will get left behind just like the businesses that got replaced by the Internet itself. It doesn't matter what the regulators have to say. They are irrelevant. That's the entire point of this movement.