Congress quietly gives crypto traders tax breaks unavailable to stock investors

What it does

This bill creates a comprehensive tax framework for digital assets (primarily cryptocurrencies). It exempts small personal transactions under $300 from capital gains tax, allows crypto miners and stakers to defer income recognition until they sell, extends wash-sale rules to digital assets, permits mark-to-market accounting for crypto traders, and allows donations of appreciated digital assets to charities with favorable tax treatment. All provisions sunset December 31, 2035.

Why we flagged it

The bill's operative mechanism is a series of tax deferrals, exclusions, and favorable accounting treatments designed to reduce the tax burden on digital asset activities. While framed as 'reform,' the substance is a tax incentive package that benefits crypto holders, miners, traders, and the broader digital asset ecosystem.

What the text implies

• The $300 de minimis exemption may incentivize structuring of transactions to stay below the threshold, creating compliance complexity and potential for abuse despite anti-abuse language.
• Income deferral for mining/staking (Section 6) allows taxpayers to recognize gains only upon sale, potentially deferring tax liability for years and creating timing mismatches with actual economic benefit.
• Wash-sale carve-out for stablecoins (Section 4(a)(3)) exempts a major crypto asset class from loss-disallowance rules, creating asymmetry with securities and potentially enabling tax-loss harvesting strategies unavailable for stocks.
• Mark-to-market election (Section 5) permits crypto traders to use favorable accounting available to securities dealers, but only for 'actively traded' digital assets, creating a definitional boundary that may be gamed.
• All provisions sunset in 2035, creating legislative cliff risk and potential for retroactive tax liability if not renewed, which may deter long-term crypto investment planning.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

The bill provides real tax relief to ordinary people who use crypto for small purchases (under $300 exemption) and to miners/stakers (income deferral), which is a concrete public benefit. However, the mark-to-market election and wash-sale carve-outs for stablecoins primarily benefit sophisticated traders and crypto industry participants, creating a two-tier system where retail users get modest relief while professional traders gain substantial accounting advantages. The sunset in 2035 also creat

Who stands to gain

• cryptocurrency traders and dealers
• digital asset mining operations
• cryptocurrency staking service providers
• crypto-native financial institutions
• digital asset exchanges

Named in the bill

Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Secretary of the Treasury, digital asset exchanges, cryptocurrency miners, staking service providers, payment stablecoin issuers

Where it stands

3 cosponsors: 3 Republicans.

• Jun 30, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
• Jun 30, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Finance · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

9 lobbying clients named this bill on 14 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $2,490,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 3 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 89% of bills with at least one filing.

Cynthia Lummis, the sponsor, reported $550,692 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.

• Investment Company Institute — $1,190,000 on 1 filing
• Payward Inc. (formerly Known As Payward Interactive, Inc. D/b/a Kraken) — $480,000 on 1 filing
• Ava Labs Inc. — $220,000 on 2 filings
• Mayer Brown Llp Obo Circle Internet Financial, Inc. — $160,000 on 2 filings
• Mysten Labs, Inc. — $160,000 on 2 filings

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.