Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange, has filed 56 million crypto-transaction forms with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the 2025 tax year, with approximately 18.5 million of these forms covering transactions valued at less than $1. Over half of the forms were for transactions worth $10 or less.
The lack of a de minimis exemption and the taxation of staking rewards at receipt have resulted in a substantial reporting burden, with many taxpayers facing additional costs and complexity. Kraken estimates that active crypto holders may incur additional costs of $250-$500 per year for dedicated tax software, on top of standard filing costs. The company argues that the current tax code creates unnecessary complexity, with many micro-transactions generating costs that are disproportionate to the revenue collected by the IRS. To address these issues, Kraken is advocating for a broader inflation-indexed exemption and the option for taxpayers to elect when staking rewards are taxed.