Invest ideasNews
22 Apr 2026, 08:42
We issued 56 million tax forms for 2025. Most were under $50. It’s time to fix digital asset taxes.
This year, we issued over 56 million Form 1099-DAs (tax form required for reporting digital asset transactions) to the IRS, one for every reportable transaction our customers made in 2025. That is what the law requires even though nearly a third of those forms (18.5 million) were for transactions worth less than $1. Over half were for $10 or less. Three out of every four were for less than $50. These forms were not sent to sophisticated traders who made big returns from crypto. The vast majority of the forms are for staking rewards measured in fractions of a cent, small purchases, and routine activity. Every single one generates a form that a real person is now expected to understand, reconcile, and report, or risk an IRS notice. The problem is not the technology. It’s the tax code. What it already costs Americans to file their taxes Before digital assets enter the picture, the tax system already imposes an extraordinary compliance burden. According to the Tax Foundation, individual tax returns alone cost Americans a combined $146 billion in time and out-of-pocket expenses . Additionally, based on IRS estimates and independent filer surveys, the average non-business filer spends about eight hours and between $128 and $300 on a standard return. Nearly one in five Americans say they do not feel prepared to file. For the more than 55 million U.S. adults who now hold digital assets, there is an additional layer. Standard tax software does not handle crypto transactions, so many investors need dedicated crypto tax tools that cost $49 to $599 per year on top of their regular filing costs. A typical active holder can spend $250 to $500 annually just to stay compliant, before counting the hours spent reconciling transactions across exchanges and wallets. But here is where it gets even harder for the average taxpayer. In 2025, brokers like Kraken report gross proceeds but not cost basis . While many taxpayers were reporting crypto taxes using tax calculators or other software, Form 1099-DA just caused taxpayers a lot of confusion as the forms presented only gross proceeds in a way many did not understand. We received thousands of questions from clients trying to understand the Forms 1099-DA, in addition to thousands more inquiries given the difficulties for exchanges to produce these on the timeline laid out by the IRS and Treasury. The scale of the problem: Kraken’s 1099-DA data Here is what Kraken’s own reporting data shows for the 2025 tax year: 53.4% of all forms were for transactions of $10 or less. 74.3% were under $50. Only 8.5% exceeded $600, the threshold that triggers reporting in most other areas of the tax code such as transactions on a payment app like Venmo. The hours taxpayers spend reconciling these micro-transactions, often with incomplete data, generate costs wildly disproportionate to any revenue the IRS will collect from them. The good news is that some in Congress are working to address this. Any tax reform that simplifies life for taxpayers should address these core issues. Fix One: a real de minimis exemption The concept is simple: a de minimis exemption that excludes small, routine digital asset payments from capital gains reporting. Imagine you walk into a Steak ’n Shake and pay for a $7.99 meal with Bitcoin through a payment app. You have triggered a taxable event. You are technically required to look up the cost basis of the specific Bitcoin you spent, calculate whether you had a gain or loss on that fraction of a coin, and report it on Form 8949. All for a hamburger and some tallow fries. The US is an outlier in this respect. The UK, for instance, applies an annual capital gains allowance that effectively exempts small crypto transactions such as this from reporting. A targeted de minimis threshold wouldn’t be novel. It would just catch America up. And while current proposed tax legislation does include a de minimis provision, it only covers payment stablecoins. It does not cover Bitcoin, the most widely held digital asset in America, which is accepted by thousands of U.S. merchants. A meaningful de minimis threshold, indexed to inflation and paired with anti-abuse guardrails, would eliminate millions of unnecessary forms while protecting revenue integrity. Congress has already established the regulatory framework for mainstream digital payments through the GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025. The tax code should be agnostic whether you are paying with cash, Bitcoin or stablecoins. Fix Two: end phantom income from staking A large portion of those sub-dollar 1099-DAs are staking rewards: tiny fractions of tokens earned for helping validate blockchain networks. While the current law is unclear, the IRS takes the position that each reward is treated as ordinary income at the moment of receipt, valued at fair market value on that date. Most people do not sell staking rewards immediately. They keep staking. But they now owe taxes on value they have not realized. If the token price drops between receipt and filing, the taxpayer owes tax on more than the asset is currently worth. This is phantom income and it’s a consequence of applying rules written for dividends and wages to a fundamentally different kind of asset. Congress should allow taxpayers to choose when staking rewards are taxed: at the time of receipt (as today) or at the time of sale, when the gain or loss is real and measurable. This would eliminate phantom income, dramatically reduce the volume of micro-transaction reporting, and align staking with how most Americans actually experience it, as something they hold rather than something they spend. Kraken and other exchanges already maintain the transaction level data needed to support either reporting method. The infrastructure exists; Congress simply needs to authorize the choice. A bipartisan moment for taxpayers This is not about helping crypto companies. It is about 55 million Americans, spanning every state, age bracket, and industry, who are navigating a tax system designed before digital assets existed. Congress should act to make taxpayers’ lives easier. Learn more about Policy at Payward The post We issued 56 million tax forms for 2025. Most were under $50. It’s time to fix digital asset taxes. appeared first on Kraken Blog .
22 Apr 2026, 08:30
FOMC decision, GDP, PCE, and Big Tech earnings, all in the next 2 weeks
The FOMC decision and Powell’s press conference land on April 29, the same evening that Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon all report. Q1 GDP, March PCE, and the Employment Cost Index follow the next morning. This is a stretch that rewards structured preparation. FOMC rate decision and press conference — April 29 The Federal Open Market Committee concludes its two-day meeting on April 29, with the policy statement due at 2:00 p.m. ET and Chair Powell’s press conference at 2:30 p.m. ET. The current target range sits at 3.50%–3.75%, and futures markets are pricing a hold as the overwhelmingly likely outcome. The decision itself is not the primary focus. What traders are watching is language. April is not a projections meeting; no dot plot, no updated Summary of Economic Projections. Which means every word in the statement carries more interpretive weight than usual. The Fed must communicate in an environment where headline inflation has risen on energy, core PCE remains above target, and Q4 2025 GDP came in at just 0.5%. The question the press conference will attempt to answer is whether the Committee treats the inflation overshoot as temporary or as a reason to hold rates higher for longer into the second half of 2026. If the statement introduces more hawkish language on inflation persistence, rate-sensitive assets including digital currencies may respond accordingly; if the tone is read as keeping later-2026 cuts alive, the reaction may run in the other direction. Historically, non-projections meetings with clear holds have produced moves driven entirely by tone rather than headline decision. Relevant markets on Kraken Pro: BTC/USD , ETH/USD , and all USD-denominated spot and margin pairs . Q1 2026 GDP advance estimate — April 30 The Bureau of Economic Analysis releases its first official read on Q1 2026 US economic growth on Thursday, April 30. This advance estimate is the earliest of three rounds and the one markets respond to most sharply. The context is loaded. Q4 2025 GDP was revised down to just 0.5% on the third estimate, from 1.4% at the advance stage, a significant deterioration that only became clear in retrospect. Q1 sits in a more disrupted environment: oil near $100 through much of the quarter, a reset tariff regime following the IEEPA ruling, and business confidence data that began reflecting Iran-conflict-related headwinds from late February onward. The GDP print arrives simultaneously with PCE and the Employment Cost Index, the morning after the FOMC decision. Traders will be interpreting all three data points through whatever framework Powell’s press conference established the previous afternoon. Historically, macro-sensitive assets including digital currencies have responded to GDP surprises in both directions; the size of any move has varied significantly with the prevailing rate environment. Relevant markets: BTC/USD , ETH/USD , and USD-denominated spot and margin pairs on Kraken Pro . PCE inflation, Personal Income and Outlays (March) — April 30 March Personal Income and Outlays (which contains the PCE price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge) releases at 8:30 a.m. ET on April 30, simultaneously with the GDP print. Traders absorb growth and inflation data in a single moment. The most recent core PCE reading came in at 2.7%, above the Fed’s 2% target. Two factors make the March reading potentially more difficult: oil prices near $100 passed through to consumer energy costs during the survey period, and tariff-related goods price increases are beginning to reach end consumers. The Fed’s rate path for the rest of 2026 depends substantially on whether core PCE shows renewed upward momentum or holds near the prior reading. If Q1 GDP is weak and core PCE is elevated, the combination tightens the policy constraint; growth is slowing but inflation is not, limiting the Fed’s flexibility to respond to either problem. Historically, rate-sensitive assets have responded to this kind of data combination with elevated volatility. Relevant markets: BTC/USD , ETH/USD , spot and margin pairs on Kraken Pro . Employment Cost Index Q1 2026 — April 30 The Employment Cost Index, also released at 8:30 a.m. ET on April 30, measures the quarterly change in total compensation across all civilian workers. Q4 2025 came in at 0.7% quarterly and 3.4% annually. The ECI is distinct from other wage measures in that it controls for changes in the mix of workers and jobs, making it the Fed’s most reliable read on structural wage pressure. For that reason, the Fed has treated it as one of the most important single data points in assessing whether inflation is re-anchoring or remaining sticky above target. A Q1 print above 0.8% quarterly, arriving alongside a soft GDP and elevated PCE reading, would be the data configuration most likely to delay any Fed rate adjustment through the summer. Traders monitoring rate probabilities for the June meeting should treat the ECI as potentially the most consequential number in a very busy morning. Relevant markets: all rate-sensitive assets on Kraken Pro , including spot and margin pairs . Tesla Q1 2026 earnings — April 22, after close Tesla reports Q1 2026 results tonight. Q1 production came in at 408,386 vehicles and deliveries at 358,023. Street consensus sits at approximately $0.37 EPS on $22.71 billion revenue, though some analyst estimates sit meaningfully below that. The more consequential question on tonight’s call is capital allocation. Media reports have described Tesla in early-stage conversations with suppliers around a large-scale AI compute facility (referred to in reports as “Terafab”) that would represent a substantial expansion beyond Tesla’s existing $20 billion 2026 capex guide. Tesla has not confirmed the scope or timeline of this project in any official filing. If the call includes disclosure on the scale of AI infrastructure ambition, traders will be assessing the balance sheet and cash flow implications alongside an auto division already managing elevated inventory following the Q1 delivery miss. Crypto markets have historically shown correlation with broad technology sentiment during periods of equity volatility. Relevant markets: BTC/USD and ETH/USD as broad risk proxies on Kraken Pro . Deribit Monthly BTC/ETH Options Expiry — April 24 The Deribit monthly BTC and ETH options expiry falls on Friday, April 24, the last Friday of April and the date on which Deribit settles its monthly contracts. This is distinct from the weekly expiry cycle and typically represents a larger volume of open interest resolving simultaneously. Monthly expiries are associated with increased implied volatility in the days preceding settlement, as traders roll or close positions and market makers adjust hedges. This expiry lands ahead of the macro data and earnings cluster from April 29 onward and traders active in BTC and ETH derivatives should factor the positioning dynamics into their planning for what follows. Relevant markets: BTC/USD and ETH/USD spot, margin , and futures on Kraken Pro . Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon Earnings — April 29, after close Four of the world’s largest companies report Q1 2026 earnings on Wednesday evening, the same day as the FOMC decision. Microsoft (Q3 FY26), Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon deliver results after the close, meaning traders process the Fed’s afternoon communication before the earnings hit. The shared narrative across all four is AI capital expenditure and whether it is producing commensurate revenue growth. Microsoft guided Azure constant-currency growth at 37–38% for Q3 following 39% in Q2, against a quarterly capex rate that has risen sharply year-over-year. Alphabet’s 2026 capex guide has been described as approximately double 2025 levels, while Meta disclosed a $115–$135 billion full-year capex plan that was nearly double its 2025 spend. Each management team will face questions about whether AI monetization is accelerating fast enough to justify the investment trajectory. For crypto traders, the macro read-across is risk appetite. Historically, a cluster of confident tech earnings guidance has supported broader risk-on conditions; a cluster of misses or cautious capex commentary has coincided with risk-off moves across equities and digital assets. Past market behavior is not a reliable indicator of future results. Relevant markets: BTC/USD and ETH/USD spot and margin pairs on Kraken Pro . Apple Q2 FY26 Earnings — April 30, after close Apple reports fiscal Q2 2026 results on Thursday evening, the same day as the macro triple-header. The company guided Q2 revenue growth of 13–16%, implying approximately $107.8 billion to $110.7 billion. Q1 was described as a record quarter. The Apple call carries a specific signal beyond the headline numbers: services revenue growth and any commentary on tariff impacts to component supply chains. If Apple reaffirms or upgrades guidance in an environment where consumer confidence is below 100 and oil is elevated, it signals that premium consumer demand is holding despite macro headwinds. If guidance is reduced citing supply chain or demand pressure, the implications extend well beyond Apple. Relevant markets: BTC/USD and ETH/USD as risk sentiment proxies on Kraken Pro . Strategy (MSTR) Q1 2026 Earnings — May 5, after close Strategy reports Q1 2026 earnings on Tuesday, May 5. The company ended 2025 holding approximately 713,502 BTC and has transitioned to fair-value accounting for its digital asset holdings, meaning quarterly Bitcoin price movements flow directly through to reported earnings and book value. The primary signal from the Strategy call is continued accumulation intent and whether the company’s equity issuance program remains active. Any change to the BTC accumulation cadence (or commentary on the fair-value accounting implications) would be notable given the scale of Strategy’s holdings relative to circulating supply. Relevant markets: BTC/USD on Kraken Pro . Also coming up: Conference Board Consumer Confidence for April releases Tuesday, April 28, following a March reading in which inflation expectations rose sharply. Advance Durable Goods for March releases Wednesday, April 29. ISM Manufacturing PMI for April — the first full monthly read under current oil and conflict conditions — releases Friday, May 1. JOLTS March job openings and ISM Services PMI for April both release Tuesday, May 5. Closing context The sequencing here is what makes the next two weeks worth mapping in advance. The FOMC decision and press conference on April 29 will establish the interpretive frame for the GDP, PCE, and ECI data that print the following morning. Apple’s guidance that same Thursday evening closes a 36-hour window in which the growth, inflation, wage, and corporate earnings picture will all update simultaneously. Knowing in advance what scenarios you are watching for (and which Kraken Pro markets are most directly exposed) is what separates reactive trading from deliberate strategy. Explore markets on Kraken Pro This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past market behavior is not a reliable indicator of future results. Trading involves risk. The post FOMC decision, GDP, PCE, and Big Tech earnings, all in the next 2 weeks appeared first on Kraken Blog .
22 Apr 2026, 08:24
xStocks Hackathon: meet the builders who shipped onchain capital markets in 48 hours
The brief was simple: Build the future of onchain capital markets. The quality of what teams shipped made the judges’ deliberations genuinely difficult. xStocks’ Director of Engineering Yotam Katznelson: “The bar was high and the winners were hard to call.” Here’s who came out on top. 1st place: xPrime xPrime is a prime brokerage for onchain assets, live on Ethereum and Ink. It lets you put your stock portfolio to work: Earn yield through strategies like USD carry trade and covered calls Borrow against your holdings Trade from a single interface The three strategies on launch range from 12% to 45.2% estimated APY, powered by xStocks as the underlying collateral layer. 2nd place: Stretch by Spreads Stretch takes the $STRCx dividend and loops it, automatically, for up to 5x more yield. No manual compounding, no complex DeFi navigation. Deposit, stretch, collect. Clean concept, clean execution. 3rd place: STREAM STREAM splits a single xStock into two separate tokens: Captures dividend rights and trades 24/7 Gives you leveraged price exposure during NYSE hours The two can always be recombined to redeem the underlying asset. It’s a yield tokenization protocol that borrows a concept well-established in traditional fixed income markets and makes it composable onchain. Currently live on Ink Sepolia and Ethereum Sepolia with 8 assets. What this hackathon proved The infrastructure is there. Builders showed up and shipped working products on top of xStocks in two days, covering prime brokerage, yield amplification, and yield tokenization. These aren’t concepts anymore, they’re live demos with real mechanics. The xStocks ecosystem is open. If you’re building, the rails are ready for you. Explore xStocks on Kraken xStocks are issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited (a Jersey private limited company) and offered to eligible Kraken customers via Payward Digital Solutions Ltd. (“PDSL”), a company licensed to conduct digital asset business by the Bermuda Monetary Authority. xStocks are not nor will be registered with any local securities regulators. PDSL (Kraken) does not provide investment advice. Individual investors should seek professional independent advice as to the suitability of any investment, including potential tax treatment. Investing in xStocks involves an element of risk. Past performance does not indicate future results. Not available in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia or to persons in sanctioned jurisdictions. Geo restrictions apply. Read Kraken’s xStocks Risk Disclosure at kraken.com/legal/xstocks as well as the Base Prospectus and related Final Terms for xStocks at assets.backed.fi/legal-documentation to learn more. The post xStocks Hackathon: meet the builders who shipped onchain capital markets in 48 hours appeared first on Kraken Blog .
22 Apr 2026, 08:10
Justin Sun pulls Trump-backed WLFI into federal scrutiny
Billionaire crypto investor Justin Sun has sued President Donald Trump-backed World Liberty Financial for allegedly freezing his WLFI tokens without cause, dragging WLFI into the federal spotlight. The case exposes a growing rift between Trump-aligned crypto supporters and the project’s leaders, whom Sun accuses of betraying crypto’s decentralization ethos. On April 2, 2026, Tron founder Justin Sun filed a lawsuit in a California federal court against WLFI for wrongfully freezing all of his WLFI holdings worth at least $75 million. The complaint alleges that the project’s team is threatening to permanently burn his tokens, depriving him of his voting rights on governance proposals. Sun is seeking a jury trial to force WLFI to unfreeze his tokens, as well as monetary damages and injunctive relief to prevent the destruction of his assets. Meanwhile, Sun’s filing characterizes WLFI as being “on the verge of collapse,” accusing the company of an illegal scheme involving extortion. The complaint includes causes of action for fraud in the inducement, unjust enrichment, conversion, and breach of contract. Sun claims the project used a hidden backdoor in its smart contracts to unilaterally freeze his holdings, highlighting a growing tension between the project’s decentralized marketing and its leadership’s centralized control. Core rift exists between WLFI’s branding and technical reality According to Sun’s complaint, a core rift exists between WLFI’s branding as a tool for financial freedom and the technical reality of its smart contracts. The billionaire crypto investor alleges that the project covertly installed a blacklist function that allows a single anonymous account to freeze any holder’s assets at will. Meanwhile, this discovery has led supporters to argue that the project functions more like a traditional bank than a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, contradicting the industry’s values. Sun has further characterized WLFI’s governance as “theater,” asserting that voting power is heavily concentrated among a few team-linked wallets. Specifically, on-chain data suggests that a small cluster of wallets controls roughly 60% of the voting power, effectively watering down community votes. Sun points to recent punitive proposals that include locking early investors’ tokens until 2030 and potentially permanently freezing the assets of those who vote against the team’s agenda. “This proposal is bad for the community, but because World Liberty has frozen my early investor tokens, I cannot vote for or against the proposal.” – Justin Sun , Founder of Tron DAO On the other hand, the project’s “Gold Paper” reveals that nearly 75% of net income is allocated to Trump-linked entities, while ordinary token holders receive no share of protocol revenue. Investors like Sun and critics accuse the project leaders of treating the WLFI community as a “personal ATM.” The leadership reportedly used billions of WLFI tokens to collateralize a $75 million stablecoin loan for their own use, a move that critics say risks further crashing WLFI’s value. The case filed by Sun has created a unique fracture among Trump-aligned supporters who argue that the project’s managers are contradicting Trump’s values. Sun and other critics also argue that the President would not tolerate WLFI’s current mode of operation if he were fully aware of it. WLFI fights back at Sun’s lawsuit, dismisses it as baseless WLFI is countering Sun’s lawsuit by dismissing it as baseless, further characterizing his claims as an attempt to distract from his own alleged misconduct. The WLFI team claims that Sun’s tokens were not frozen due to a “hidden backdoor,” but rather as a reactive measure to his specific misconduct. Specifically, WLFI claims that Sun used his HTX exchange to offload WLFI tokens while simultaneously encouraging retail investors to lock their own holdings for yield. WLFI’s risk disclosures state that the company can block and freeze wallet addresses and associated tokens it determines are linked to illegal activities or violations of its terms. The project also contends that Sun’s strategy was to exit his position early by using users’ locked tokens as liquidity on his exchange, with plans to use future token vestings to fill those balances. In this case, WLFI argues that Sun breached his investor agreement, justifying the freeze of nearly 595 million tokens. The project’s leadership maintains that blacklisting addresses is a legitimate security and compliance measure rather than a secret tool for censorship. However, Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic lawmakers have used the feud to highlight what they call “presidential crypto corruption.” They further claim that the Trump administration is favoring “billionaire buddies,” while ordinary retail investors suffer from the token’s 90%+ price decline. If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter .
22 Apr 2026, 08:02
Coinbase BTC premium index stays positive for 14 days
📈 The Coinbase BTC premium index stayed positive for 14 days. This key signal shows strong US investor demand in $BTC. Continue Reading: Coinbase BTC premium index stays positive for 14 days The post Coinbase BTC premium index stays positive for 14 days appeared first on COINTURK NEWS .
22 Apr 2026, 07:52
Huobi founder Li Lin taps Bitfire to recover $760M in disputed Bitcoin
Bitfire is where Li Lin is placing his next crypto bet in Hong Kong. Li is taking the trading team and trading setup from Avenir Group, his family office, and putting them into Bitfire Group, the Hong Kong-listed company where he is the biggest shareholder. Bitfire, which works in wealth management, said on Wednesday that it agreed to buy Avenir’s investment team and trading systems for $1.6 million. Li first made his name through Huobi, the exchange now called HTX. Mainland China has banned cryptocurrency trading since 2021, but Hong Kong is trying to build itself into a virtual asset center. Li sold a controlling stake in Huobi for about $1 billion to Justin Sun in 2022. After that, he turned his attention to Avenir. Bitfire brings Li’s trading team into Hong Kong to raise outside Bitcoin money With the Avenir deal in place, Bitfire wants to raise outside capital for a regulated bitcoin-denominated asset management product called Alpha BTC. Livio Weng, chief executive of Bitfire, said the company wants to attract investment equal to more than 10,000 Bitcoins within a year. At the value cited in the source material, that is about $760 million. Livio said, “Market demand for such products is huge,” as more local companies hold Bitcoin but still do not have an easy way to earn returns from it. He said the Alpha BTC strategy plans to generate profit through derivatives trading, including options, using either bitcoin or the IBIT ETF as the underlying asset. The target clients are both crypto-native investors and Hong Kong-based companies. That target list matters because Bitfire estimates that at least 40 Hong Kong-listed companies already hold bitcoin. So the company is going after a market where companies already have crypto on their books and may now want a regulated way to try to earn more from those holdings. Hong Kong builds crypto rules while US lawmakers stay stuck over stablecoin and market bills Meanwhile, at one of the city’s biggest Web3 events, officials and lawmakers talked openly about taking Hong Kong’s crypto push beyond the local market. Eric Yip Chee-hang, executive director of intermediaries at the Securities and Futures Commission, said, “We can be a little bit more aspirational now that we have a strong hold locally. We should also expand our influence by [increasing] exposure internationally.” Eric added that Hong Kong had been “in the spotlight” at international conferences because it had “achieved so much.” Earlier this month, the city gave out its first two licenses for stablecoin issuers. It is also pushing ahead with rules for crypto dealers and custodians. Duncan Chiu Tat-kun, a member of the Legislative Council for the Technology and Innovation constituency, said on Monday that there had been “a lot of advancement” in the United States. He said Hong Kong was paying close attention to US bills including the Genius Act, which deals with stablecoins, and the Clarity Act, which is meant to set rules for crypto market structure. But Duncan also said the Clarity Act has stalled because the Senate is still dealing with a fight over stablecoin yield between banks and crypto companies. He said Hong Kong needs to keep watching what happens next in Washington. If the bill does not pass this month, he said it could slide to the end of 2027. He added that such a delay would slow a lot of the legislative work in the US, especially with uncertainty around the midterm elections in November. Duncan said, “I think they’ve written a very good bill, but the political situation will not give clarity [for] some time to the development of the market.” He then pointed to Hong Kong’s “steady progressive build-up” in digital asset regulation compared with the changing ground in the US before Donald Trump took office in January 2025 and after the Biden administration had taken a hard line against crypto companies. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them .
