A clash over tax rules for digital currencies such as bitcoin turned into a political coming-of-age moment for the cryptocurrency industry, galvanising a usually fractious coalition of investors, exchanges, financiers and social-media influencers.

In public, Ashton Kutcher, Elon Musk and Square chief executive Jack Dorsey brought the Twitter heat over a provision in the $1tn infrastructure bill seeking to expand and strengthen tax enforcement of crypto transactions. That helped prompt tens of thousands of followers to call members of Congress.