Now may be your best time to buy a new laptop, agentic AI as a cybersecurity threat, Bluevine partners with Xero on small-business banking, and seven other developments that happened in technology this past month and how they’ll impact your clients and your firm.

House Republicans passed legislation to keep the U.S. government open past a Saturday shutdown deadline, daring moderate Democrats in the Senate to block the measure over objections it fails to constrain Elon Musk’s cost-cutting crusade. 

GOP congressional leaders didn’t negotiate with Democrats on the President Donald Trump-backed funding measure, which runs through Sept. 30. Earlier talks broke down after Democrats demanded language to rein in Musk.

Republican leaders sent House lawmakers home after the vote, seeking to force the Senate to accept the spending package or be blamed for a shutdown. Speaker Mike Johnson said Democrats would be responsible for “every negative consequence that comes from shutting down the government.”

The House passed the bill, 217-213, with Jared Golden of Maine the only Democrat to support it. Republican Thomas Massie joined Democrats in voting against the measure.

The bill will likely need the support of at least eight Democrats in the Republican-controlled Senate to become law, given opposition from Republican Rand Paul to the bill. 

If the measure fails in the Senate, Republican congressional leaders could try to pass a shorter-term stopgap later in the week and bring House lawmakers back to Washington to cast their votes on it. 

Johnson was able to unite fractious House Republicans with help from Trump, who threatened a primary challenge against Massie for opposing it.

To win over Republicans, the measure increases security spending by $4.4 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It has a $440 million boost for immigration enforcement, while cutting the Internal Revenue Service by $20 billion and blocking the District of Columbia from spending $1 billion of its own tax dollars. It also gives the Pentagon flexibility to buy new weapons, an unusual provision in a stopgap bill demanded by GOP defense hawks. 

Johnson argued that passing the 99-page stopgap bill would allow Congress to focus on making deep spending cuts next year. The cuts next year would be informed by the efforts of Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to identify “wasteful” spending, he said. 

The bill contains no new limits to prevent DOGE and agency heads from firing federal workers or canceling federal grants and contracts. The Musk effort has already effectively shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development and laid off thousands of probationary federal employees across the government. 

Those actions are being challenged in the courts, as critics argue they amount to illegal impoundments of money approved by Congress. 

Democrats voted against the bill, despite years of condemning government shutdowns, saying it would enable Musk’s efforts.  

“We’re not going to provide our votes to perpetuate stealing taxpayers money,” House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark said.

Moderate Senate Democrats including Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, and Mark Kelly of Arizona declined to say how they would vote on the bill when asked. Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman said he would support it. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer simply said before the vote he was waiting to see whether the House would pass it.

If a shutdown occurs on Saturday, the White House budget office would have latitude to decide which federal workers are furloughed and which essential staff must continue without pay. Military troops would remain on duty without pay until the end of the shutdown. Under current law, furloughed workers would automatically receive back pay even though they did not work. 

The House of Representatives passed a resolution to repeal the regulations that created reporting requirements for trading front-end service providers that work directly with users on digital asset transactions (colloquially known as DeFi brokers.) The 292-132 vote came shortly after the Senate approved its own bill on the matter by a vote of 70-27. 

DeFi systems, unlike traditional finance, do not use intermediaries like banks but instead operate in a peer-to-peer fashion using smart contracts, which are self-executing lines of computer code that automatically enforce the rules and conditions of an agreement between two or more parties, stored on a blockchain, a type of public digital ledger. The previous administration warned that illicit actors can launder their money through the DeFi ecosystem in a number of ways, such as using cross-chain bridges to transfer cryptocurrency from one blockchain to another, asset mixers that comingle the proceeds of criminal activities with legitimate money, or liquidity pools that provide fee income. The Treasury said that ransomware gangs in particular are fond of laundering their money through DeFi networks.

In general, the rule required decentralized finance platforms to report detailed information on customers to the IRS, starting in tax year 2027. Effectively, the rule would require DeFi brokers to file a Form 1099 and be subject to the same reporting rules as brokers for securities and operators of custodial digital asset trading platforms. The rule was designed to improve tax compliance and create parity with centralized crypto exchanges and stock brokerages. Those opposing the rule, though, said there were too many differences between DeFi brokers and traditional securities brokers for the rule to be practical — they are not centralized, do not collect the information needed to implement this rule, and do not act as a true third-party intermediary like more traditional securities brokers. They warned that the rule would hold major negative consequences for the crypto sector. 

On Dec. 27, 2024 the Treasury and the IRS issued final regulations on sales and exchanges of digital assets on the new Form 1099-DA for decentralized finance brokers, along with transition relief. The requirements for DeFi companies start on or after Jan. 1, 2027, two years later than the rules for centralized exchanges and platforms.

Lawmakers, mostly Republicans, objected not only to the rule itself but also to its 11th hour issuance. 

“Under President Biden, the IRS traded congressional intent for a politically motivated mandate,” said House Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith, R-Missouri, in a statement. “The Biden administration made no secret of its opposition to digital assets and America’s leadership in this booming industry. Bureaucrats weaponized every tool in the toolbox, including finalizing this rule at the 11th hour, crippling the digital asset industry and threatening American leadership and innovation in the process. Approximately one in four Americans own cryptocurrency. This rule puts a huge burden on these regular folks and could discourage participation in the digital asset market altogether.”  

The joint resolution effectively repeals the rule submitted by the Treasury relating to “Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales.” It also paves the way for the current administration to apply its own rules. 

The news comes after another major crypto-related announcement: the establishment of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile. The reserve will treat Bitcoin, the first and most popular blockchain-based cryptocurrency, as a reserve asset. It will be capitalized with tokens owned by the Department of Treasury that were forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings.

The U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, meanwhile, will consist of digital assets other than bitcoin owned by the Department of Treasury that were forfeited in criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings.