Crypto's Anonymous Era Just Ended: Form 1099-DA Now Tells the IRS What You Sold and Its Cost-Basis Math May Not Match Yours

A new IRS form already sent the government a dollar figure from your crypto account, and it almost certainly does not tell the story you think it does.

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If you traded crypto last year, a new tax form probably landed in your mailbox this spring. It’s called Form 1099-DA, “Digital Asset Proceeds From Broker Transactions,” and it is the IRS’s first serious look inside your exchange account.

Here is the part almost nobody caught: for 2025 transactions, the form generally reports gross proceeds only. It does not have to show your cost basis or your overall gain or loss. That means the dollar figure your broker sent to the IRS is what you sold for, not what you made.

The clock on the next phase is already running. We are inside the 2026 tax year right now. Cost basis reporting phases begin for transactions in 2026 for certain covered digital assets, and those forms will hit mailboxes in early 2027. The records you keep between now and December 31 decide whether next year’s form agrees with your return.

What Form 1099-DA Actually Is

The rules stem from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and from final regulations released by Treasury and the IRS that extend long-standing securities reporting concepts to digital assets. In plain English, crypto now gets the same information-return treatment stocks have had for years.