Greater than half of cryptocurrency traders don’t perceive the elemental idea of taxability in the case of their digital asset holdings, based on a survey by the U.S.-listed crypto trade Coinbase (COIN) and Cointracker, a crypto tax and portfolio monitoring platform.
The 2026 Crypto Tax Readiness Report discovered that solely 49% appropriately perceive that crypto is taxable anytime it’s offered, whereas nearly 1 / 4 mistakenly consider easy transfers set off tax occasions.
Regardless of nearly all of customers having good intentions in the case of crypto tax compliance, the multi-platform actuality of crypto possession exacerbates the so-called value foundation downside, deducting the unique buy value of an asset to report capital good points.
The survey discovered customers averaged 2.5 platforms/wallets with 83% utilizing self-custodial wallets, and solely 35% reporting that they’d adjusted their value foundation previously. The survey, performed in late 2025, surveyed 3,000 U.S. crypto customers.
The confusion round value foundation within the new 1099-DA varieties is made worse because of a level of overreporting constructed into the brand new regime, Coinbase says. It’s because on a regular basis actions like stablecoin funds and Ethereum fuel charges set off taxable occasions, whereas producing little significant tax income.
Coinbase stated it expects to subject over 4 million 1099-DAs Varieties to prospects with underneath $600 of proceeds – added to the truth that over 60 % of its prospects have incomplete value foundation knowledge because of the manner digital belongings transfer throughout wallets and platforms.
“Right this moment, meaning each stablecoin fee, each small DeFi [decentralized finance] transaction, each fuel charge is technically a taxable occasion,” Coinbase stated. “The compliance burden this imposes on odd Individuals is not simply inconvenient – it is a direct risk to the adoption and innovation the GENIUS Act was designed to unlock.”
Regardless of the wrinkles, the transfer to standardized reporting of crypto taxes will assist adoption in the long term, stated Matt Value, director of investigations at blockchain analytics agency Elliptic. Value, a former IRS particular agent targeted on prison investigations, sees this as a shift towards focused enforcement fairly than the broad, handbook investigations of the previous.
Additionally a former head of investigations at Binance, Value understands the complexity of doing crypto taxes, having been paid partly in crypto by Binance and having to account for a risky asset within the type of a fee.
“How do you even report it?” Value stated in an interview. “I did not actually have a 1099 to report that, so I needed to basically do all of my very own accounting to file correct taxes to account for that info.”
As such, the arrival of 1099-DA varieties means welcome standardization that merely brings crypto in step with what different monetary merchandise have had for years and mirrors the method of the 1099-B for brokerages.
“There is definitely nuance and it’s a good level that the premise is tougher to calculate given the excessive frequency of buying and selling,” Value stated. “However there are some parallels to that in conventional investments as properly; I do not know what number of retail merchants are operating algo trades on Schwab, for instance, however that can also be a really related sort of commerce. If they’ll determine it out, I believe the trade can in all probability determine it out.”