With year-end approaching, it’s a good time to make sure your tax house is in order. It’s especially important for crypto investors, given a new IRS brokerage reporting requirement covering transactions after Jan. 1, 2025.
The IRS generally treats crypto like property, similar to stocks or real estate, so selling crypto can trigger a capital gain or loss. And while crypto investors should have been keeping good records all along, the new reporting requirement gives them an even more compelling reason. That’s because brokerages now have to send what’s known as a Form 1099-DA. For tax year 2025, they’re required to report gross proceeds for each digital asset sale the broker processes. In 2026 and beyond, it’s mandatory for brokers to report gross proceeds and cost basis information for covered securities.
Because brokers haven’t had to issue 1099s for selling or exchanging crypto in the past, it was easier for people to act as tax cheats, said Ric Edelman, financial advisor, author and founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals. “Many people mistakenly believe that there’s no reporting obligation,” Edelman said.
As crypto investors do their tax planning for a year which saw bitcoin rise to new heights, but more recently endure a huge selloff that has shaved over $40,000 off its record price, it’s important to understand the new, stricter recordkeeping requirements.
Let’s say you bought ethereum for $1,500 and paid a $50 transaction fee, your cost basis would be $1,550, according to an example provided by Coinbase. “Essentially, your gain or loss is the difference between the gross proceeds and the cost basis. If you sold that 1 ETH for $2,000, your taxable gain would be $450 ($2,000 – $1,550).”
Get your crypto recordkeeping in order now
Brokers are required to report the cost basis information for tax year 2026, and if you haven’t been keeping good records thus far, you’re going to have to start. “It’s a taxpayer’s responsibility to track and substantiate whatever cost basis they’re providing,” said Daniel Hauffe, senior manager for tax policy and advocacy at The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
For many crypto investors, this will be complicated, especially if they transferred their tokens to a broker after holding them elsewhere and haven’t kept careful records. In that case, the broker won’t have the amount you purchased the crypto for; the broker would only know the price when you transferred it, Hauffe said.
Ideally, taxpayers should try to iron out these issues now, before brokers are required to report the basis, and that may require speaking to a qualified tax professional.
Crypto investors who have been keeping track of their holdings haphazardly in the past should also consider hiring a tax crypto recordkeeping provider. There are a number of these services, including ProfitStance, Taxbit, TokenTax and ZenLedger.
Edelman said it’s best to use a recordkeeping provider because of the complexities involved. “If you try to do this manually, it is complicated and you’re likely to make errors,” he said.
Crypto staking, and staking ETFs, to be a major tax focus
While the IRS issued core guidance about the tax treatment of cryptocurrency more than a decade ago, the market has changed significantly since then, underscoring the need for updated guidance in several areas.
In 2024, the IRS, in Notice 2024-57, said it was continuing to study different types of crypto transactions to determine appropriate taxation. This has left many taxpayers in limbo and scratching their heads on how to report certain types of transactions. While the IRS has said it won’t impose penalties for limited types of transactions while the regulations are being ironed out, taxpayers still have to keep careful records so they can appropriately account for them.
One area in which cryptocurrency investors are awaiting direction is staking transactions. Guidance on this and other types of more complicated crypto transactions are expected next year, Edelman said. Some advocates say taxes should only be applicable at the time these rewards are spent, sold, or otherwise disposed of. Thus far, however, the IRS has said that these rewards should be taxed as income upon receipt, Hauffe said.
Additional guidance in staking specifically could be especially important now that the IRS has confirmed exchange-traded funds issuers can provide staking rewards, said Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, a digital asset-focused investment platform. The availability of cryptocurrency within ETFs has widened the playing field for ordinary investors to gain some exposure to the asset class, and the latest guidance suggests more investors will face tax consequences from staking rewards. “Staking rewards are increasingly common for investors because they’ve now been activated in ETFs,” Pandl said.
Bitcoin’s big drop could be a tax-loss advantage
For some crypto investors, there may be an opportunity in the next month or so for tax-loss harvesting, which involves selling investments at a loss and using those losses to offset gains in other investments, Pandl said.
Bitcoin’s struggles since its record highs in October could present an opportunity for investors to benefit from a tax perspective, depending on when they bought the crypto. Some investors could also benefit from tax-gain harvesting, a strategy that involves selling the investment when you think it’ll have the least impact on your taxes.
“This is the time to be thinking about that and planning for it,” said Stuart Alderoty, president of the National Cryptocurrency Association, a non-profit focused on crypto education. “You can harvest gains and you can harvest losses as well,” he said.
Many accountants don’t understand digital assets
Taxation depends largely on a person’s tax bracket and whether they are short-term or long-term gains. For example, if you’ve held the crypto for more than a year, profits are subject to long-term capital gains rates of 0%, 15% or 20%. If the crypto was held for less than a year, ordinary tax rates between 10% to 37% apply.
Due to the complexity and unique nature of crypto, determining taxation is complicated by other factors, especially since IRS rules about crypto are in flux. As one example, it is important to make sure to report the crypto transaction on the right form. For example, if you sold, exchanged or otherwise disposed of a digital asset you held as a capital asset, use Form 8949. If you were paid as an employee or independent contractor with digital assets, report the digital asset income on Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return.
On top of that, many crypto owners are confused about the federal income tax question pertaining to digital assets. On the first page, near the top, they’re asked to identify whether at any time during the tax year, they either received (as a reward, award or payment for property or services) or sold, exchanged or otherwise disposed of a digital asset.
Many people think “received” means buy, but it doesn’t, Edelman said. Rather, the IRS says it refers to digital assets received for payment for property or services provided, a reward or award, mining, staking and similar activities or an airdrop as it relates to a hard fork.
For these and other issues regarding crypto taxation, make sure you’re talking to a tax advisor who is knowledgeable about crypto. “Most accountants are not because they haven’t had any training in this area,” Edelman said.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Nov. 21, 2025 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Last week on Wall Street, two forces dragged stocks lower: a set of high-stakes numbers from Nvidia and the U.S. jobs report that landed with more heat than expected. But the leaves that remained after hot tea scalded investors seemed to augur good tidings.
Even though Nvidia’s third-quarter results easily breezed past Wall Street’s estimates, they couldn’t quell worries about lofty valuations and an unsustainable bubble inflating in the artificial intelligence sector. The “Magnificent Seven” cohort — save Alphabet — had a losing week.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics added to the pressure. September payrolls rose far more than economists expected, prompting investors to pare back their bets of a December interest rate cut. The timing didn’t help matters, as the report had been delayed and hit just as markets were already on edge.
On Friday, New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said that he sees “room” for the central bank to lower interest rates, describing current policy as “modestly restrictive.” His comments caused traders to increase their bets on a December cut to around 70%, up from 44.4% a week ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
And despite a broad sell-off in AI stocks last week, Alphabet shares bucked the trend. Investors seemed impressed by its new AI model, Gemini 3, and hopeful that its development of custom chips could rival Nvidia’s in the long run.
Meanwhile, Eli Lilly’s ascent into the $1 trillion valuation club served as a reminder that market leadership doesn’t belong to tech alone. In a market defined by narrow concentration, any sign of broadening strength is a welcome change.
Diversification, even within AI’s sprawling ecosystem, might be exactly what this market needs now.
What you need to know today
And finally…
The Beijing music venue DDC was one of the latest to have to cancel a performance by a Japanese artist on Nov. 20, 2025, in the wake of escalating bilateral tensions.
China’s escalating dispute with Japan reinforces Beijing’s growing economic influence — and penchant for abrupt actions that can create uncertainty for businesses.
Hours before Japanese jazz quintet The Blend was due to perform in Beijing on Thursday, a plainclothesman walked into the DDC music club during a sound check. Then, “the owner of the live house came to me and said: ‘The police has told me tonight is canceled,'” said Christian Petersen-Clausen, a music agent.
— Evelyn Cheng
Correction: This report has been updated to correct the spelling of Eli Lilly.
Meta halted internal research that purportedly showed that people who stopped using Facebook became less depressed and anxious, according to a legal filing that was released on Friday.
The social media giant was alleged to have initiated the study, dubbed Project Mercury, in late 2019 as a way to help it “explore the impact that our apps have on polarization, news consumption, well-being, and daily social interactions,” according to the legal brief, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
The filing contains newly unredacted information pertaining to Meta.
The newly released legal brief is related to high-profile multidistrict litigation from a variety of plaintiffs, such as school districts, parents and state attorneys general against social media companies like Meta, Google’s YouTube, Snap and TikTok.
The plaintiffs claim that these businesses were aware that their respective platforms caused various mental health-related harms to children and young adults, but failed to take action and instead misled educators and authorities, among several allegations.
“We strongly disagree with these allegations, which rely on cherry-picked quotes and misinformed opinions in an attempt to present a deliberately misleading picture,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement. “The full record will show that for over a decade, we have listened to parents, researched issues that matter most, and made real changes to protect teens—like introducing Teen Accounts with built-in protections and providing parents with controls to manage their teens’ experiences.”
A Google spokesperson said in a statement that “These lawsuits fundamentally misunderstand how YouTube works and the allegations are simply not true.”
“YouTube is a streaming service where people come to watch everything from live sports to podcasts to their favorite creators, primarily on TV screens, not a social network where people go to catch up with friends,” the Google spokesperson said. “We’ve also developed dedicated tools for young people, guided by child safety experts, that give families control.”
Snap and TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 2019 Meta research was based on a random sample of consumers who stopped their Facebook and Instagram usage for a month, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit alleged that Meta was disappointed that the initial tests of the study showed that people who stopped using Facebook “for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and social comparison.”
Meta allegedly chose not to “sound the alarm,” but instead stopped the research, the lawsuit said.
“The company never publicly disclosed the results of its deactivation study,” according to the suit. “Instead, Meta lied to Congress about what it knew.”
The lawsuit cites an unnamed Meta employee who allegedly said, “If the results are bad and we don’t publish and they leak, is it going to look like tobacco companies doing research and knowing cigs were bad and then keeping that info to themselves?”
Stone, in a series of social media posts, pushed back on the lawsuit’s implication that Meta shuttered the internal research after it allegedly showed a causal relationship between its apps and adverse mental-health effects.
Stone characterized the 2019 study as flawed and said it was the reason that the company expressed disappointment. The study, Stone said, merely found that “people who believed using Facebook was bad for them felt better when they stopped using it.”
“This is a confirmation of other public research (“deactivation studies”) out there that demonstrates the same effect,” Stone said in a separate post. “It makes intuitive sense but it doesn’t show anything about the actual effect of using the platform.”
Almost every night, for almost a decade, I got a phone call between 7:00 and 7:01 p.m. ET. I didn’t have to look at the three letters on my phone screen to know who was ringing. It was the old man we called Pop, or more like “The Old Man of the Mountain,” as he called himself when we had our grandchildren. Sometimes I tired of the words, but I always took a breath before I hit hello, lest he hear the fatigue in my voice for something I know I would miss dearly one day. “Jamesy,” he would say, “the best one yet.” Always, “the best one yet.” If I have a regret, it’s that I never tape recorded it because I would like to play it between 7:00 and 7:01 p.m. now, every night. But I didn’t. So, call me intrigued, when I saw on my schedule that I would soon be interviewed by two gentlemen, Jack Crivici- Kramer and Nick Martell, on a podcast called “TBOY.” I knew these two as the people who started what I know to be Robinhood Snacks, something I still read midmorning, which is about 6:30 a.m. for the collective slackers I deal with. I had heard of some of their stuff since, but candidly, I didn’t pay close attention — or, at least, close enough attention until I knew I would be interviewed by them on “TBOY.” I have always felt kindred to anyone younger who loves the markets, so I figured this one, this interview, would be the one where they would have actually read my new book, “How to Make Money in Any Market,” and even realize that I was trying to radicalize the public into thinking they could pick a few stocks — five, to be sure — to go with the omnipresent index funds that we are required to take, along with our mumps, diphtheria, whooping cough, chicken pox and measles shots. At a time when so much is up for debate, I have a right to argue that you can buy stocks of companies that you can observe. You know, be curious about them, Google them, look at their websites and discover everything that, in many cases, granted them admission to the sainted S & P 500, an active fund that masks itself in passivity. The S & P shot gives you immunity from the downside, at least they claim. However, if the index is all you own, it sure cuts you off the upside, as I endlessly prove. The purveyors of conventional wisdom act as if nothing has happened that could make it easier to pick stocks since since they began their insistence on you checking your brain at the door of your savings — nothing like the web, the chatbots, the bountiful information we all know exists but our financial “betters” still ignore. So, out of deference to the creators of “TBOY,” I decided to do more than show up. I listened to old podcasts. And listened some more. And some more — right through the three hours of time I leave for quiet homework, even before Ragu and Toni get up. No, don’t buy Campbell’s because of those hounds. Rest in peace to my old dog, Nvidia. The TBOY podcast was delicious. Just crisp, funny, smart and on point. Just like young people really interested in the markets can give you. Just as young people want the information now, not in ancient and flat form, but in something that’s much harder and more creative with a staccato, machine-gun style of delivery. As I listened to some recent episodes, I heard one that was so spot on that I found myself thinking I should actually highlight some of their analysis on “Squawk on the Street” before I saw them. Oh, by the way, what does “TBOY” stand for? “The Best One Yet.” So, I knew it was right to be going on this show and, more important, I knew there could be no pride of authorship. The boys behind “TBOY” figured out the great conundrum facing this market, which is the existential nature of OpenAI. More specifically, they realized that OpenAI has pledged to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to beat Alphabet -owned Google with ChatGPT. But it can’t. And it won’t. OpenAI, they said, wants to be Google with comprehension, but we don’t need it because we have Google with Gemini. In other words, Google is already everything OpenAI aspires to be. Released on Tuesday, Google’s latest version of Gemini — its AI chatbot to rival ChatGPT — is remarkably capable, with enhanced reasoning capabilities. Additionally, Gemini 3 demonstrates that the scaling laws of AI are still intact, just as Nvidia’s Jensen Huang has for months insisted was the case in the face of some concern about the pace of improvement for AI models. Soon after the Morning Meeting, I went up to see Nick and Jack at their Nasdaq haunt. They were more than gracious and hilarious, frankly, as I thought they would be, as well as respectful beyond all belief, which I found somewhat embarrassing and totally charming. Before we could sit, I complimented them on their triumphant Google observation. As true students of the game of the book tour, though, they preferred to dive into my book. Right from the get-go, minutes after we were mic’d up, they began to press and press about index funds versus picking stocks. They had read the book well, knew it chapter after chapter, as I always hoped would be the case. It was a joy to have actually knowledgeable interlocutors in this, the final station upon my author’s promotional cross. Candidly and somewhat remorsefully, I thought for sure that during my press tour for the book, there would be actually someone who would challenge me, but you can’t challenge me if you haven’t read it. What can I say? It made me rapturous to actually talk about why you can pick stocks, the comparison to when I began to build a portfolio versus now, and how the index fund predators would never let anyone pick a stock, lest they pick the speculative names like Rigetti Computing , Oklo , Joby Aviation and others like it. I, on the other hand, am happy to “allow” readers to own index funds along with self-directed stocks. Why not? Thoughtful investors, armed with the newfound ease of the homework, might select one or two stocks among five that can be life-changing, like Nvidia was to so many of you. The hour flew by. I demanded more time. They thought I was jesting. I was just so damned happy that they got it — it being the revolution I was trying to start when I wrote this book, a rebellion against the index-fund orthodoxy that, at its core, is an insult to the intelligence of everyday people. But no, it was time to depart. I had to write my show and interview a CEO before that. Plus, this was all transpiring on the day the market had a hideous about-face, with none other than Nvidia leading the way into the abyss of an island reversal, up to down in one horrendous session. When I got back, I thought I should write a segment covering what I thought about TBOY and their thesis of OpenAI being beaten by the revitalized of Google. Then I realized, there was not enough time. And it would be way too linear. The fact is, the biggest crisis this market has — the one that may be TWOY — is the hubris of the individual behind ChatGPT, Sam Altman. This supercilious man believes that if he spends enough money that he doesn’t currently have, he can challenge Google in the biggest vertical in the world, information, and that his knowledge factory will top the one in Mountain View, California. We, the users of Gemini 3, now know it will be a tough climb. OpenAI appears so far behind this new Gemini that Altman may have to pivot and go after the verticals of the other hyperscalers: social media or retail and perhaps even enterprise software. There’s only one problem with a potential pivot. No, make that three. First, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already decided to spend any challenger to death regardless of what it will do to his stock. Social media, with all of those targeted ad dollars, will always be Meta’s turf. Zuckerberg has the firepower to be sure that’s the case. Second, Amazon is always going to win in retail, it’s only real competitor being Walmart . The new initiative toward same-day grocery delivery only widens its moat to defend against challengers. Plus, cloud unit Amazon Web Services, back in growth mode , spins off enough cash to make going against Amazon’s cyber-stores a fool’s errand. Which leaves one other place to go: the enterprise. In the “Oedipus Rex” of our time, Altman may have no choice but to challenge Microsoft at its own game. The 27% stake that Microsoft has in Altman’s entity might not matter to the man who will eventually recognize how cornered he is. Sure, there are other routes for OpenAI. Altman can buy Reddit, a terrific idea if only to block others from that amazing advertising vehicle and its trove of audience-generated content that is great to train models on. The best of Hobson’s choice: Altman could write a check to Apple to make ChatGPT the pre-loaded AI model on its operating systems. The check will have to be a big one as Gemini is the presumed choice. Sadly, at least for the market, I think he will attack every hyperscaler, given his Alex Karp-like ego. Karp is the longtime CEO and co-founder of Palantir . So what happens if Altman does? No single company has that kind of money needed to attack all comers. I think we got a glimpse of what could occur when we got the gaffe of all tech gaffes: OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar uttering the word “backstop” at a Wall Street Journal conference in early November. The quick denouement: Altman spends so much that perhaps a teetering OpenAI becomes a national champion with government-backed loans, the presumption being that President Donald Trump can’t let it fail. A failure this proportion could set back our whole bulwark against the Chinese in an AI race rife with national security concerns. In that situation, everyone makes out well and the market actually soars. I’ll take it. Or, Microsoft, sensing OpenAI’s peril, knows that the true value of OpenAI is now much lower than anyone thinks, so Microsoft crams its child down and buys it for several hundred billion, a totally satisfactory answer even if it means that Nvidia has one less customer. The market is reassured that the spend was all worth it and everything resumes the upward climb. Another possibility: The market stops allowing Oracle to build new data centers and cuts off OpenAI’s credit, with no one coming to its rescue. In that scenario the worry would be awful: wave after wave of companies producing shortfalls as everything is over-built. That is the Thursday scenario, the one that produced that painful Nvidia reversal after its spectacular earnings report the prior evening. I think the repudiation occurred because of a version of what I just traced out. Part of that version included an April 2000 nightmare, that fateful middle of the month tech estrangement when the money poured out of that group and headed to safety stocks like Johnson & Johnson , Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble , hence our recent buy of the latter because it had been the only one left behind. (Memo to second-guessers: Exiting Johnson & Johnson and Google were huge misses of mine, and I know that well. I just waited for them to come down and they never did). Now we are in a benign period, not that we weren’t when November began and we were told by the calendar investors that we would have a tremendous month. There are plenty of people who still think that we are still in “The Year Of Magical Investing.” These believers will continue to think that’s where we are until the money is taken away, which is what will happen. There are others who are willing to skate past the denouement to where April 2000 resides. There are others who think that they can sell all of the tech giants, except Alphabet and Apple, not a terrible hedge. In the end, though, if things play out as the “TBOY” hosts suggest, we do have to go through some turmoil as OpenAI flails and we wait for the positive – or negative — theses play out. Either way, know this: Alphabet has won in the most logical of battles. Let’s hope that Altman knows Trump and it all works out, as it did with Intel , in the end. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long META, AMZN, NVDA, AAPL and PG. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. 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