The six priorities outlined focus on easing administrative burdens for individual users, aligning crypto tax treatment with longstanding principles in other areas of tax law, and ensuring fairness and neutrality so that cryptocurrency usage is neither penalized nor privileged relative to comparable activity in the traditional economy.
At Coin Center, our mission is to defend the rights of individuals to build and use free and open cryptocurrency networks. Sound tax policy is central to that mission. Without...
Financial institutions today are burdened by identity verification frameworks that are simultaneously costly, privacy-invasive, and ineffective at deterring illicit finance. Despite vast surveillance systems built on the foundation of the...
A general introduction to “crypto,” both the underlying technology as well as the larger ecosystem, and a set of principles for legislating in this area to ensure that American rights...
The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) allows the Secretary of the Treasury to demand transaction surveillance and reports of personal information from a category of entities defined as “financial institutions.” Originally...
Newly created cryptocurrency tokens dilute the holdings of existing token owners. If block rewards are taxable income at their fair market value at the time acquired, token holders’ income will...
Summarizing complexities and pitfalls in analyzing the electricity demand of new information technology, focusing on Bitcoin, the mostly widely used cryptocurrency
The rapid emergence of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has taken many in the energy sector by surprise. This report summarizes complexities and pitfalls in analyzing the electricity demand of new...
U.S. taxpayers lack answers to basic questions about the federal tax and reporting effects of transactions involving cryptocurrencies. Although the Internal Revenue Service has been examining issues related to the...
Regulators, law enforcement, and the general public have come to expect that cryptocurrency transactions will leave a public record on a blockchain, and that most cryptocurrency exchanges will take place...
Cash is more than a method of payment. It is a fundamental tool for individual privacy and autonomy, and it is necessary for an open society. This paper shows that...
This report, originally published in 2016 and updated in 2018, presents a framework for securities regulation of cryptocurrencies— e.g. Bitcoin and derivative projects or “alt-coins.” The framework is based on the...