By Mike Ring | Blockchain Crypto Tax Prep
Your Crypto.com 1099-DA arrived. Maybe it landed in your inbox in February, maybe you hunted for it in March. Either way, you opened it, saw a number under “Gross Proceeds,” and felt one of two things: relief that it looked small, or mild nausea that it looked enormous.
Both reactions may be wrong. Because the number on your 1099-DA is almost certainly not your taxable gain. It’s not even close to a complete picture. It’s a starting point — and a flawed one — that you are legally required to correct before you file.
This guide covers what Crypto.com’s 1099-DA actually shows, how cost basis is (or isn’t) reported, the Crypto.com-specific issues that trip people up, and exactly how to fix missing or $0 basis. We also link out to our other exchange-specific guides and our full 1099-DA missing cost basis pillar guide so you can cross-reference wherever you traded.
This is not tax advice — your situation may differ. Consult a tax professional or reach out to us before filing.
What Is Form 1099-DA, and Why Did Crypto.com Send It?
The requirement for brokers to report digital asset transactions stems from changes to Internal Revenue Code §6045 made by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Treasury and IRS issued final regulations on reporting by brokers on dispositions of digital assets, and this reporting is required on Form 1099-DA beginning with transactions on or after January 1, 2025.
In plain English: Crypto.com is now a regulated broker, same as Fidelity or Schwab. It must report your disposals to the IRS. You get a copy. The IRS gets a copy. Whatever’s on that form lands in an IRS computer before your return does.
Form 1099-DA, Digital Asset Proceeds From Broker Transactions, is the new tax form introduced by the IRS that requires brokers — including digital asset trading platforms, payment processors, and hosted wallet providers — to report information regarding digital asset transactions, such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
There is no minimum dollar threshold for issuing Form 1099-DA. Even small transactions are reported on the form. Sold $4 of SOL by accident? That’s on there.
What Crypto.com’s 1099-DA Actually Includes
Your Crypto.com Form 1099-DA will include: the digital asset sold and its DTIF code, number of units disposed of, date of the transaction, gross proceeds, and your account and taxpayer identification information.
Form 1099-DA requires brokers to report detailed information about each digital asset transaction, including payer and recipient identification, and transaction details like asset name, quantity, date, time, and gross proceeds.
For active traders, this means volume. The new 1099-DA form requires reporting of a single transaction on a single form. Therefore, an individual with 100 trades might receive 100 copies of Form 1099-DA. If you were grinding spot trades on the Crypto.com Exchange last year, your tax package could be thick.
What It Does NOT Include
Here’s where it gets uncomfortable.
Your Crypto.com Form 1099-DA will not include cost basis for crypto transferred in from another exchange or wallet, or any transactions made through the Crypto.com DeFi Wallet.
Crypto.com has opted out of reporting on cost basis, meaning it’s very likely that section 1g on your 1099-DA(s) is ‘unknown,’ meaning it is reporting your gross proceeds, rather than your capital gains and losses.
Read that again. Gross proceeds. Not gains. Not net profit. The full dollar amount of every sale — before subtracting what you paid.
The Cost Basis Problem (It’s Not Just Crypto.com)
This isn’t a Crypto.com-specific failure. It’s a structural feature of the first year of 1099-DA reporting.
For 2025 transactions, brokers are required to report only gross proceeds, not cost basis. Basis reporting is optional in 2025.
Mandatory basis reporting will be phased in, applying only to “covered securities,” a term narrowly defined as digital assets acquired on or after January 1, 2026, and held continuously in a broker’s account. Any asset acquired before that date or transferred into a broker’s platform is considered a “noncovered security,” for which brokers are not required to report basis.
What does that mean practically? For 2025 digital asset transactions, many 1099-DA statements will show gross proceeds but not cost basis, so you still need your own records to calculate gains and losses, especially if you used multiple wallets, exchanges, or DeFi.
The math on ignoring this is brutal. If in early 2026 you receive a Form 1099-DA showing gross proceeds of $5,200 but not your cost basis, you could pay taxes on $5,200 instead of $2,200. The IRS isn’t going to volunteer your basis for you.
Crypto.com-Specific Gotchas
General 1099-DA problems are bad enough. Crypto.com adds a few layers of its own.
1. The Multi-Product Problem
Crypto.com must aggregate data across multiple internal product lines — the Main App, the Exchange, the DeFi Wallet, and the Crypto.com Visa Card. Each of these segments may treat asset transfers differently, especially regarding historical cost basis.
If you moved assets between the Crypto.com App and the Exchange — something millions of users do routinely — the internal transfer may have broken the cost basis chain. The form may not reflect what you actually paid.
2. Transferred-In Coins Show $0 Basis
If you transferred Bitcoin from an external wallet (like a hardware wallet) onto the Crypto.com exchange in 2024, Crypto.com may not know your original acquisition price. Consequently, they may report a $0 cost basis, making your entire proceeds appear as a taxable gain. This “worst-case scenario” reporting is a major driver of 1099-DA inaccuracies.
This is the scenario that generates the scariest-looking 1099-DAs. If your 1099-DA shows a blank or $0 cost basis, you could pay thousands in unnecessary taxes unless you correct it. The good news: you’re allowed to correct it. The bad news: you have to do the work.
3. The DeFi Wallet Is a Black Box
Any activity you conducted through the Crypto.com DeFi Wallet is not captured on the 1099-DA. That wallet is self-custodial — Crypto.com doesn’t control those private keys, doesn’t see those on-chain transactions, and doesn’t report them.
You will not receive a 1099-DA from DeFi platforms or self-custody wallets — though those transactions remain 100% taxable.
If you earned yield, swapped tokens, or moved assets through the DeFi Wallet, none of it appears on the 1099-DA. That doesn’t make it invisible to the IRS — it just means you’re entirely on your own for documentation.
4. Staking Rewards and Earn Products
Crypto.com’s Earn, staking, and rewards products are popular. They’re also not cleanly captured on the 1099-DA, which focuses on disposals. Staking rewards received are generally treated as ordinary income at fair market value when received — a separate tax event from any eventual sale. Non-reported but taxable events including DeFi, staking, lending, and LP activity, even though these may not generate a 1099-DA, may trigger tax events.
5. The Wallet-by-Wallet Tracking Rule
Under Revenue Procedure 2024-28, the IRS eliminated “universal” cost basis tracking effective January 1, 2025. You must now track cost basis separately for each wallet and exchange account.
This means if you bought ETH on Coinbase in 2021 and transferred it to Crypto.com to sell in 2025, Crypto.com has no visibility into that 2021 purchase price. The cost basis for that ETH lives entirely in your own records — and you need to bring it to the return yourself.
6. Email Delivery and Phishing Risk
Crypto.com sends 1099 form notifications by email. Users have noted receiving emails from addresses that caused concern about legitimacy. If skeptical about an email received, reach out to Crypto.com support directly in the chat to verify, so you know it’s coming directly from them.
Don’t click links in unsolicited tax form emails without verifying the source. Tax season is a phishing season.
How to Fix Missing or $0 Cost Basis
This is the part that actually matters.
Step 1: Pull Your Complete Transaction History
Download your full transaction history from Crypto.com. The exchange offers CSV exports. Do this for every year you’ve had an account, not just 2025. You need acquisition records — dates, amounts, prices — to reconstruct cost basis.
Do the same for every other wallet or exchange that ever held coins you eventually sold on Crypto.com. Keep your trade history, transfers, fees, and acquisition records so you can calculate the correct crypto cost basis and holding period.
Step 2: Reconcile Against the 1099-DA
Compare what’s on the form against your own records. If section 1g is blank, unknown, or marked non-covered, your 1099-DA is usually reporting proceeds, not your actual capital gain or loss. If your gains look too high, the next place to look is your cost basis, not the proceeds field.
For transferred-in assets, trace the original acquisition. You need the date you bought those coins, not the date you moved them.
Step 3: Report Correctly on Form 8949
Report your accurate gains and losses on Form 8949 by selecting the relevant checkbox as to whether your cost basis was or was not reported.
When cost basis was not reported to the IRS (which is the situation for virtually all 2025 Crypto.com activity), check Box B or Box E on Form 8949, depending on short vs. long-term holding period. This tells the IRS you’re supplying your own basis — which you are legally permitted and required to do.
If your cost basis is reported incorrectly, there’s no need to request a corrected form in every case. You can simply report your accurate cost basis on Form 8949.
Under IRS rules, FIFO (first-in, first-out) is the default cost basis method for digital assets unless you’ve specifically elected and documented another method like specific identification.
Step 4: Document Everything
Keep records for at least 6 years — the IRS can audit up to 6 years back in cases of substantial understatement. Screenshots, CSVs, email confirmations of trades — all of it. If you reconstructed cost basis from records outside Crypto.com, document how you did it.
Step 5: When to Contact Crypto.com
If the proceeds numbers are wrong — not just the basis, but the actual amounts Crypto.com says you received — that’s when you contact support. Contact Crypto.com support and request a corrected 1099-DA, documenting your attempts to resolve the issue. This shows good faith effort on your part if the IRS investigates.
Be persistent — Crypto.com handles immense support volume during tax season, and obtaining a corrected form can take weeks. If you’re close to the filing deadline, consider filing an extension rather than rushing a return with bad numbers.
The Audit Risk You Can’t Ignore
Any assets you transferred in, acquired via staking/DeFi, or purchased before the broker began tracking will show blank or incomplete cost basis. The IRS receives the same 1099-DA you do. When your return doesn’t match broker-reported proceeds, automated systems flag the discrepancy — even if you’ve correctly accounted for cost basis yourself.
The IRS’s matching systems are not subtle. If the form says $90,000 in proceeds and your return shows $90,000 in proceeds but a $72,000 cost basis — you’re fine. If your return is silent about $90,000 in proceeds — that’s a problem. Always match the proceeds number, even when you’re correcting the basis.
Other Exchange 1099-DA Guides
Crypto.com is one piece of many. If you traded across multiple platforms in 2025, check the relevant guides in our Insights hub:
For the full breakdown of missing and $0 cost basis across all exchanges, see our pillar guide: 1099-DA Missing Cost Basis: What to Do.
FAQ: Crypto.com 1099-DA
Does Crypto.com report cost basis to the IRS on my 1099-DA?
For the 2025 tax year, no. Crypto.com has opted out of reporting on cost basis, meaning section 1g on your 1099-DA(s) is likely ‘unknown,’ reporting your gross proceeds rather than your capital gains and losses. Cost basis reporting becomes mandatory for covered assets (acquired on or after January 1, 2026) starting with the 2026 tax year.
I transferred ETH from my Ledger to Crypto.com and then sold it. Why does the form show $0 basis?
Because Crypto.com has no way of knowing what you paid for ETH on a self-custody wallet. If you transfer crypto from a cold wallet to an exchange to sell it, the exchange won’t know your original purchase price. You are fully responsible for fixing this missing data on your tax return. Pull your original purchase records and report the correct basis on Form 8949.
My Crypto.com DeFi Wallet transactions aren’t on the 1099-DA. Do I still owe tax?
Yes. You will not receive a 1099-DA from DeFi platforms or self-custody wallets, but those transactions remain 100% taxable. The 1099-DA only covers Crypto.com’s centralized exchange. DeFi Wallet activity — swaps, LP positions, yield — needs to be tracked and reported separately.
I got a 1099-DA but I only held crypto. I never sold anything. Why?
Check carefully. Any U.S. user who sold, traded, or otherwise disposed of crypto through the Crypto.com exchange during 2025 is eligible to receive Form 1099-DA. Simply buying and holding does not trigger the form. A crypto-to-crypto trade (e.g., CRO to BTC) counts as a disposal. So does spending crypto on the Crypto.com Visa Card in some configurations. If you received the form, something was disposed of — go find it.
Should I just copy the numbers from my Crypto.com 1099-DA onto my return?
Hard no. Cost basis information on Form 1099-DA can be inaccurate. Simply copying the numbers from the form without double-checking could cause you to overpay on your taxes. Treat the 1099-DA as a starting point for reconciliation, not a finished document.
Do I need a corrected 1099-DA if only the cost basis is wrong?
If your cost basis is reported wrong, there’s no need to request a corrected form. Simply report your accurate cost basis on Form 8949. You only need to push for a corrected form if the proceeds figures are incorrect.
The IRS received my 1099-DA. What happens if I don’t report those proceeds?
When your return doesn’t match broker-reported proceeds, automated systems flag the discrepancy — even if you’ve correctly accounted for cost basis yourself. An IRS CP2000 notice is the most common outcome: the IRS proposes additional tax based on what was reported by the broker. Failing to include cost basis means the IRS may assess taxes on the full proceeds amount. Don’t let that happen passively.
Bottom Line
Your Crypto.com 1099-DA is a data artifact, not a tax return. It tells the IRS what you received from sales. It does not tell the IRS — or you — what you actually made. That math is your job, and this year, it’s more important than ever to do it right.
For the 2025 tax year, cost basis is almost entirely your responsibility to document and report. Transferred coins, DeFi Wallet activity, Earn rewards, and cross-platform trades all create gaps that the 1099-DA won’t fill.
For authoritative IRS guidance on Form 1099-DA requirements and timeline, see the IRS Digital Assets page and the IRS FAQ on broker reporting.
If your Crypto.com situation involves transferred-in coins, multi-exchange activity, or DeFi Wallet transactions, the reconciliation work is non-trivial. Our 1099-DA missing cost basis solution page lays out exactly how we approach it. This isn’t tax advice — your specific facts determine your specific treatment — but we’ve seen enough Crypto.com 1099-DAs to know the patterns.
Get it right before the IRS does it for you.
Need help with your crypto taxes? Mike Ring and the BCTP team handle the messy stuff — multi-chain DeFi, 1099-DAs that don’t add up, prior-year amendments. Free consult at cryptotaxprep.io or call 410-216-4632.
This isn’t tax advice. Talk to a professional about your specific situation.
