With year-end approaching, it’s a good time to make sure your tax house is in order. It’s especially important for crypto investors, given a new IRS brokerage reporting requirement covering transactions after Jan. 1, 2025.
The IRS generally treats crypto like property, similar to stocks or real estate, so selling crypto can trigger a capital gain or loss. And while crypto investors should have been keeping good records all along, the new reporting requirement gives them an even more compelling reason. That’s because brokerages now have to send what’s known as a Form 1099-DA. For tax year 2025, they’re required to report gross proceeds for each digital asset sale the broker processes. In 2026 and beyond, it’s mandatory for brokers to report gross proceeds and cost basis information for covered securities.
Because brokers haven’t had to issue 1099s for selling or exchanging crypto in the past, it was easier for people to act as tax cheats, said Ric Edelman, financial advisor, author and founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals. “Many people mistakenly believe that there’s no reporting obligation,” Edelman said.
As crypto investors do their tax planning for a year which saw bitcoin rise to new heights, but more recently endure a huge selloff that has shaved over $40,000 off its record price, it’s important to understand the new, stricter recordkeeping requirements.
Let’s say you bought ethereum for $1,500 and paid a $50 transaction fee, your cost basis would be $1,550, according to an example provided by Coinbase. “Essentially, your gain or loss is the difference between the gross proceeds and the cost basis. If you sold that 1 ETH for $2,000, your taxable gain would be $450 ($2,000 – $1,550).”
Get your crypto recordkeeping in order now
Brokers are required to report the cost basis information for tax year 2026, and if you haven’t been keeping good records thus far, you’re going to have to start. “It’s a taxpayer’s responsibility to track and substantiate whatever cost basis they’re providing,” said Daniel Hauffe, senior manager for tax policy and advocacy at The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
For many crypto investors, this will be complicated, especially if they transferred their tokens to a broker after holding them elsewhere and haven’t kept careful records. In that case, the broker won’t have the amount you purchased the crypto for; the broker would only know the price when you transferred it, Hauffe said.
Ideally, taxpayers should try to iron out these issues now, before brokers are required to report the basis, and that may require speaking to a qualified tax professional.
Crypto investors who have been keeping track of their holdings haphazardly in the past should also consider hiring a tax crypto recordkeeping provider. There are a number of these services, including ProfitStance, Taxbit, TokenTax and ZenLedger.
Edelman said it’s best to use a recordkeeping provider because of the complexities involved. “If you try to do this manually, it is complicated and you’re likely to make errors,” he said.
Crypto staking, and staking ETFs, to be a major tax focus
While the IRS issued core guidance about the tax treatment of cryptocurrency more than a decade ago, the market has changed significantly since then, underscoring the need for updated guidance in several areas.
In 2024, the IRS, in Notice 2024-57, said it was continuing to study different types of crypto transactions to determine appropriate taxation. This has left many taxpayers in limbo and scratching their heads on how to report certain types of transactions. While the IRS has said it won’t impose penalties for limited types of transactions while the regulations are being ironed out, taxpayers still have to keep careful records so they can appropriately account for them.
One area in which cryptocurrency investors are awaiting direction is staking transactions. Guidance on this and other types of more complicated crypto transactions are expected next year, Edelman said. Some advocates say taxes should only be applicable at the time these rewards are spent, sold, or otherwise disposed of. Thus far, however, the IRS has said that these rewards should be taxed as income upon receipt, Hauffe said.
Additional guidance in staking specifically could be especially important now that the IRS has confirmed exchange-traded funds issuers can provide staking rewards, said Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, a digital asset-focused investment platform. The availability of cryptocurrency within ETFs has widened the playing field for ordinary investors to gain some exposure to the asset class, and the latest guidance suggests more investors will face tax consequences from staking rewards. “Staking rewards are increasingly common for investors because they’ve now been activated in ETFs,” Pandl said.
Bitcoin’s big drop could be a tax-loss advantage
For some crypto investors, there may be an opportunity in the next month or so for tax-loss harvesting, which involves selling investments at a loss and using those losses to offset gains in other investments, Pandl said.
Bitcoin’s struggles since its record highs in October could present an opportunity for investors to benefit from a tax perspective, depending on when they bought the crypto. Some investors could also benefit from tax-gain harvesting, a strategy that involves selling the investment when you think it’ll have the least impact on your taxes.
“This is the time to be thinking about that and planning for it,” said Stuart Alderoty, president of the National Cryptocurrency Association, a non-profit focused on crypto education. “You can harvest gains and you can harvest losses as well,” he said.
Many accountants don’t understand digital assets
Taxation depends largely on a person’s tax bracket and whether they are short-term or long-term gains. For example, if you’ve held the crypto for more than a year, profits are subject to long-term capital gains rates of 0%, 15% or 20%. If the crypto was held for less than a year, ordinary tax rates between 10% to 37% apply.
Due to the complexity and unique nature of crypto, determining taxation is complicated by other factors, especially since IRS rules about crypto are in flux. As one example, it is important to make sure to report the crypto transaction on the right form. For example, if you sold, exchanged or otherwise disposed of a digital asset you held as a capital asset, use Form 8949. If you were paid as an employee or independent contractor with digital assets, report the digital asset income on Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return.
On top of that, many crypto owners are confused about the federal income tax question pertaining to digital assets. On the first page, near the top, they’re asked to identify whether at any time during the tax year, they either received (as a reward, award or payment for property or services) or sold, exchanged or otherwise disposed of a digital asset.
Many people think “received” means buy, but it doesn’t, Edelman said. Rather, the IRS says it refers to digital assets received for payment for property or services provided, a reward or award, mining, staking and similar activities or an airdrop as it relates to a hard fork.
For these and other issues regarding crypto taxation, make sure you’re talking to a tax advisor who is knowledgeable about crypto. “Most accountants are not because they haven’t had any training in this area,” Edelman said.
