House Ways and Means Unveils 114-Page Bitcoin (BTC) Tax Bill to Ease Small-Transaction Tax Friction

House Panel Tables 114-Page Tax Bill

The House Ways and Means Committee released the “Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act” late Monday, a 114-page crypto tax bill (H.R. 10357) that the panel frames as the answer to years of industry appeals for clear treatment of small transactions, staking and gain-or-loss accounting. The framing tracks the industry's longest-running grievance: under current rules, anyone spending digital assets must report a capital gain or loss on every disposal, even a coffee-sized purchase — a burden advocates have argued for years makes routine payments impractical on networks such as Polygon (POL) and on decentralized venues like Uniswap (UNI). The 114-page bill text (H.R. 10357), which our desk reviewed directly, would eliminate tax on de minimis network or transaction fees — any fee below $10 — though a person who engaged in more than 5,000 transfers over the prior year would be excluded from the relief. Beyond the fee carve-out, the measure addresses gain and loss accounting, transfers, wash sale rules, mining, staking and broker requirements; many provisions target tokenized assets, a category spanning public-chain instruments to Circle's Arc Blockchain, and one section clarifies how ownership is treated for digital asset disposition purposes. It also directs the Treasury secretary and the Internal Revenue Service to develop and publish new rules as needed. Chairman Jason Smith's panel will take the bill up at a markup scheduled for 10:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Sept. 16, where lawmakers will debate its provisions and vote on whether to advance the measure. The legislation builds on successive drafts introduced over the past year by Representatives Steven Horsford and Max Miller.

Wednesday's markup, listed on the committee's official schedule alongside several other bills, could mark the first significant movement for crypto tax legislation in the U.S. Congress. Enactment this year, however, is considered unlikely: the House is set to break later this week and remain out of session until after the November election, leaving limited time to debate and vote on a tax bill. Still, any progress in 2026 could carry the work into 2027, when the new Congress is sworn in. The House's fall calendar could also be claimed by a different file — the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act — assuming the Senate can pass it, an outcome that remains far from certain at press time. The Senate is scheduled to hold its first vote on Tuesday and needs 60 lawmakers to support the measure to continue debate, with Democrats expressing concerns about a revised ethics provision included in the bill's text shared Sunday. For markets, the near-term effect is expectation-setting rather than flows: no tokens move and no liquidity shifts on a markup calendar, and Bitcoin (BTC) was changing hands near $77,000 at the time of writing. If eventually enacted in some form, the fee exemption would strip reporting obligations from the highest-frequency, lowest-value interactions in the digital-asset economy — the ones least able to justify the compliance cost. The distinction that matters is legal status: the text is a proposal, not a final rule, and it binds no taxpayer until both chambers pass it and it is signed into law. A committee vote would send H.R. 10357 toward the House floor, though no floor date exists, and implementation would still fall to the Treasury Department and the IRS under the bill's own rulemaking directive. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bybit.

From Bill Text to IRS Rulemaking

COINOTAG's reading: 2026 has moved digital-asset policy from hearing rhetoric to executable text, and tax certainty is emerging as the second legislative leg behind market structure. The primary document itself tempers the excitement: the de minimis carve-out reaches only fees below $10 and excludes actors with more than 5,000 annual transfers, while the granular work is delegated to the Treasury secretary and the IRS — so the final shape of U.S. crypto taxation will be set by rulemaking, not by this statute alone. How traders price procedural milestones of this kind tends to show up in gauges such as the crypto Fear and Greed Index rather than in filings; the binding dates sit on the floor calendar. For now, the action stands as taken: the committee has tabled its text and set Wednesday's vote.