Kraken’s new access to the Fed’s master account will bring bitcoin closer to mainstream banking, Senator Cynthia Lummis, a prominent Bitcoin advocate, said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday.
The senator predicted that the development would accelerate the convergence between traditional banks and crypto companies, allowing financial institutions to eventually offer services for dollar and digital assets under one roof.
“The Fed has finally recognized the importance of this US-based asset and can now use safety and stability standards, apply them to digital asset financial institutions like Kraken, and have partial Fed access that allows them to begin integrating the US dollar with digital assets,” Lummis said.
Kraken used Wyoming’s special purpose depository institution framework for approval and became the first digital asset company to gain access to the federal rails.
“In the future, you will see banks buying digital asset companies, digital asset companies buying banks. So if you go to a bank, they can serve you both fiat currencies like the US dollar and digital assets like Bitcoin,” he added. “It will create the financial services industry of the 21st century.”
Discussing the tax reform he introduced last July, Lummis said lawmakers would set a $300 threshold for exempting small crypto transactions from capital gains tax.
According to a Wyoming Republican who chairs the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets, the proposed de minimis exemption would allow Americans to spend Bitcoin and other digital assets on everyday purchases without triggering a tax event.
The proposed exemption would allow Americans to spend Bitcoin and other digital assets on everyday purchases without triggering a taxable event, Lummis said in a television interview today.
“The challenge is trying to figure out how you can use Bitcoin as a medium of exchange without paying capital gains tax on it,” Lummis said.
In a push for regulatory clarity, he said, Republicans on the Banking Committee have made significant concessions to their Democratic colleagues on legislation that would establish stricter rules for digital assets.
The House has already approved a version of the bill, but the Senate is still debating it.
“We gave them more than 90 requests that the Democrats had from us, but we can’t get them to go yes,” Lummis said.
