ARTICLE
29 June 2026

Seeing What Sticks: Congress Considers Eight Crypto Tax Bills

CW
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

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Cadwalader, established in 1792, serves a diverse client base, including many of the world's leading financial institutions, funds and corporations. With offices in the United States and Europe, Cadwalader offers legal representation in antitrust, banking, corporate finance, corporate governance, executive compensation, financial restructuring, intellectual property, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, private wealth, real estate, regulation, securitization, structured finance, tax and white collar defense.
Congress is considering multiple legislative proposals to modernize cryptocurrency taxation, ranging from targeted bills addressing specific issues to a comprehensive bipartisan measure. The proposals tackle critical questions about wash sales, mining rewards, staking income, and stablecoin transactions that could reshape how digital assets are taxed in America.
United States Tax
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On June 9, 2026, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing to discuss various crypto tax legislative proposals. Specifically, the hearing addressed eight recent crypto tax bills: seven individual smaller draft bills targeting discrete crypto tax topics and one comprehensive bipartisan bill introduced by Congressmen Steven Horsford (D-NV) and Max Miller (R-OH), which we previously summarized here and here

While the individual legislative proposals are similar and have noticeable overlap with the comprehensive bill, they also include subtle differences. Taken together, the bills provide lawmakers with a universe of potential crypto tax measures to choose from in setting the new crypto tax agenda. Notably, none of the proposals allows individual taxpayers to exclude a de minimis amount of gain or loss on crypto broadly, which was a key feature of previously proposed crypto legislation, discussed here and here.

Although a comprehensive bill may lack support in Congress, it may be easier to obtain bipartisan support for smaller crypto tax bills, increasing the likelihood that Congress will pass at least some crypto tax legislation later this year. In particular, a bill extending the wash sale rules to digital assets, a topic that appeared to have broad bipartisan support during 2025 Senate and House hearings, could likely become law. Some bipartisan support also exists for a bill, which would allow taxpayers to either include mining and staking rewards in income upon receipt or defer such income until disposition, with any realized gains or losses at the time of disposition taxed as ordinary income. The comprehensive bill also addresses these points.

Other key issues addressed in the various bills include:

  • Applying the securities lending rules to cryptocurrency lending;
  • Expanding the Commodity Trading Safe Harbor to include certain cryptocurrencies;
  • Permitting traders and dealers of cryptocurrency to mark to market their gains and losses;
  • Exempting certain small stablecoin transactions from taxation;
  • Applying constructive sale rules to cryptocurrency;
  • Exempting de minimis network fees; and
  • Clarifying the charitable contribution rules for cryptocurrency, including the elimination of a valuation requirement.

While it is still too early to tell whether any bill will become law, crypto market participants should continue to closely monitor legislative developments.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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