Crypto exchange Kraken filed nearly 56 million cryptocurrency transaction reports with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for the 2025 tax year, it said, with many tied to very small transactions. It said 18.5 million reports were for transactions under $1 and more than half were $10 or less. Kraken said the current system forces taxpayers to reconcile incomplete data and can raise compliance costs, and it called for changes to de minimis exemptions and staking taxation.

Bitcoin users in the United States who pay with the cryptocurrency face heavy tax reporting burdens because each purchase is treated as a separate capital transaction, analysts say. They must record acquisition and disposal details and report them to the IRS on Form 8949 and Schedule D. Cato Institute researcher Nicholas Anthony says this makes routine payments impractical and weakens bitcoin’s currency function. He proposes policy changes, while payment tools advance faster than tax rules.