The U.S. Treasury and IRS have officially repealed the regulation that required non-custodial services to collect customer data.
The United States Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service have officially eliminated the “crypto broker” regulation.
Originally designed to enhance tax transparency in the crypto sector, the rule raised concerns among industry players, who deemed it technically unenforceable and potentially harmful to innovation in the space.
What the regulation required
The crypto broker regulation originated from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed in November 2021 during the Biden administration. Its stated goal was to close a supposed information gap in tax reporting by broadening the definition of “broker” to include participants in blockchain networks.
Under the regulation, non-custodial service providers would have been required to act as traditional financial intermediaries, collecting customer names and addresses for tax purposes.
Although the Treasury later softened the initial definition — excluding miners and node operators, who typically have no way to gather transaction data — the IRS finalized the rule for “crypto brokers” in December 2024.
Industry and congressional opposition
Opposition to the regulation steadily grew within the industry, as key players pointed out the technical impossibility for autonomous blockchain protocols to collect the required information. Operators argued that such a requirement could have stifled innovation in the U.S. crypto sector.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz led the legislative effort to overturn the regulation, introducing a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution in January 2025. Bipartisan opposition in Congress resulted in a vote to repeal the regulation last March, with President Donald Trump signing the repeal resolution into law on April 11.
The official announcement from the Treasury, published on July 10, confirmed that “under the joint resolution and by operation of the CRA, this final rule shall have no force or effect.” The document specifies that the Treasury Department and IRS are officially removing the rule from the Code of Federal Regulations, restoring the regulatory text to its state prior to the rule’s adoption.
