Blockchain Association Urges Congress to Pass Crypto Tax Reform

The Blockchain Association sent a letter to Senate and House leadership on Thursday demanding bipartisan digital asset tax legislation, the group's first broad tax push since the Clarity Act failed in the Senate on September 15. The letter, signed by Chief Policy Officer Lindsay Fraser and addressed to Majority Leader John Thune, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, argues that rules covering the 67 million Americans who hold digital assets "were written for a different era."

The association paired the letter with a new site, TaxClarityforAmerica.com, built for constituents to contact their representatives. The asks are familiar: a de minimis exemption for small transactions, cash treatment for stablecoins, taxing mining and staking rewards at sale instead of receipt, limiting broker reporting to firms that hold customer assets, and wash sale rules that close loss harvesting without sweeping in everyday transactions.

The letter adds three newer items: a safe harbor for foreign traders on U.S. exchanges, a mark-to-market election, and R&D credit eligibility for blockchain development. What it omits is an endorsement. Two tax bills are in play, and the association named neither.

Where do the tax bills stand?

The House moved first. One day after the Clarity Act failed, the Ways and Means Committee approved the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, a 114-page package from Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO). It exempts network fees under $10 from capital gains reporting, with a carve-out for taxpayers who made more than 5,000 transfers in the prior year, and extends wash sale and constructive sale rules to digital assets. Qualified dollar stablecoins are exempt from the wash sale rule.

The package dropped the provision the industry wanted most. Rep. Mike Carey's Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act, H.R. 9175, which would have let miners and stakers defer tax until sale, appeared in an early discussion draft but was gone from the text released on September 14. Instead, the bill classifies validation rewards as ordinary income, taxable on receipt. Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), who had proposed capping deferral at five years, voted for the package and said it leaves the question open for further work.

The Blockchain Association, Crypto Council for Innovation and Digital Chamber had asked the committee in June to pass that bill without changes. The committee did the opposite.

The Senate has its own version. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced the ADAPT Act on September 30 with Sens. Cynthia Lummis, Bernie Moreno and Tim Scott as cosponsors. It exempts purchases made with GENIUS Act stablecoins from gain or loss, sets the same $10 fee threshold, and applies wash sale rules with grandfathering for existing holdings and exemptions for mining and staking rewards. It sits in committee. Lummis's earlier bill, S. 2207, with a $300 per-transaction de minimis exemption capped at $5,000 a year, has been in the Finance Committee since June 2025.

Neither chamber's bill contains the exemption for small bitcoin purchases that the industry made a centerpiece at Bitcoin 2026. The House bill's $10 threshold covers fees, not purchases. The Senate bill's spending exemption covers stablecoins, not bitcoin. The Bitcoin Policy Institute and others have argued any de minimis rule should cover bitcoin, and Thursday's letter asks for a "meaningful" exemption without naming a figure.

Why is the timing awkward?

Congress is in recess until after the November 3 midterms. When members return, they face a lame-duck session measured in weeks, with crypto taxes competing against government funding and whatever else leadership clears before the 119th Congress ends. Lummis, the Senate's loudest voice on digital asset taxes, retires in January 2027.

The Clarity Act's collapse shapes the strategy. The market structure bill passed the House 294-134 in July 2025, then stalled in the Senate for more than a year while the banking lobby fought the crypto industry over stablecoin yield and Democrats pressed for ethics language aimed at the Trump family's crypto ventures. The cloture vote on September 15 failed 49-50. No Democrat crossed over, and Republicans Susan Collins, Josh Hawley and Jerry Moran voted no. Sen. Thom Tillis switched his vote to file a motion to reconsider, which keeps the bill alive on paper and little more.

With market structure off the table, lobbying has shifted to what might move. The House package cleared committee with bipartisan votes, and its wash sale provisions raise revenue, giving tax writers a reason to attach them to a larger vehicle. Punchbowl News reported Thursday that the association's refusal to back either bill signals the industry wants more than Congress has produced. Meanwhile, regulators keep filling the gap: the OCC issued its final GENIUS Act rule on Wednesday, and the SEC and CFTC continue setting market structure policy through rulemaking and enforcement. Any tax deal now faces a lame-duck window that effectively closes when the 119th Congress ends in early January.