Treasury Issues Guidance on Digital Asset Broker Reporting
Final instructions clarify which intermediaries must file customer transaction reports, leaving non-custodial software developers outside the perimeter.
The Treasury Department published final guidance this week setting out which digital asset intermediaries fall within the statutory definition of a broker for information reporting purposes.
The instructions confirm that entities taking custody of customer assets and effecting transactions on their behalf must file annual reports of gross proceeds and, for covered acquisitions, cost basis.
Developers of non-custodial software are explicitly excluded, resolving an ambiguity that industry groups had raised in more than a thousand comment letters during the proposal stage.
Compliance teams say the operational challenge is basis tracking across transfers, since assets frequently arrive at a reporting intermediary from wallets it cannot see.
The reporting obligation applies to transactions occurring after the start of the next calendar year, with a transitional penalty relief period for good-faith filers.
About the author
Chief Regulatory Correspondent
Marcus Thorne has covered financial regulation for fifteen years, reporting on securities enforcement, market structure rulemaking and cross-border supervision. Before joining D2CA he spent eight years on the enforcement beat at a Washington legal trade publication and holds a law degree from Georgetown.
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