[MIKE: tax check needed. The points to confirm are listed at the very bottom. This note and that list are deleted before publishing.]
Short answer: no. Phantom and MetaMask are self-custody wallets, and Uniswap is a decentralized exchange. None of them sends you or the IRS a Form 1099-DA. That form comes from custodial brokers, which in practice means centralized exchanges. The part people miss is the second half: not being reported is not the same as not being taxable. What you do in a wallet or on a DEX is generally taxed the same way as what you do on an exchange, and with no form to lean on, the record-keeping is yours.
This is general information, not tax advice. Your situation may differ. Talk to a professional before you file.
Who reports and who doesn’t
| Where you traded | Sends a 1099-DA? | Do you still report it? |
|—|—|—|
| Centralized exchange (Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini and similar) | Yes, for sales starting with the 2025 tax year | Yes |
| Phantom, MetaMask and other self-custody wallets | No | Yes |
| Uniswap, Jupiter and other DEXs | No | Yes |
| Hardware wallets | No | Yes |
| A card or bank “buy” feature inside a wallet | The wallet doesn’t. The payment company behind the button may have its own reporting duties | Yes |
The right-hand column never changes. The reporting rules decide who has to send a form. They don’t decide what you owe.
Why there’s no form
A 1099-DA is a broker form. To issue one, a company needs to know who you are and what you sold. A custodial exchange holds your coins and has your name and tax ID on file. A self-custody wallet is software running on your device. It doesn’t hold your coins and typically doesn’t know who you are. A DEX is a set of smart contracts with a website in front of it.
In late 2024 the Treasury finalized rules that would have treated DeFi front ends as brokers. Congress repealed those rules in 2025 before they took effect. So for now, on-chain activity comes with no tax form from anyone.
“Not reported” is not “not visible”
Three things connect a wallet to a person, and none of them needs a 1099.
- The ledger is public. Every swap from a Phantom or MetaMask address is on-chain permanently, timestamped, with amounts.
- Your exchange knows your wallet. The moment you send coins from a wallet to an exchange to cash out, or withdraw from an exchange to a wallet, that address is tied to a verified account. Exchange records have been turned over to the IRS under court order before. We covered one case in Kraken’s IRS court order.
- The return asks you directly. Form 1040 has a yes-or-no digital asset question near the top, signed under penalty of perjury.
None of this is a reason to panic. It is a reason not to build a plan on the idea that wallet activity is invisible. More on that in can crypto transactions be tracked.
What’s taxable inside a wallet
The same things that are taxable anywhere else.
- Swaps. Trading SOL for a memecoin in Phantom, or ETH for USDC through MetaMask’s swap feature or on Uniswap, is generally a disposal of the token you gave up. Capital gain or loss, Form 8949.
- Selling for dollars. Same, whether it happens through an off-ramp in the wallet or after you move the coins to an exchange.
- Staking rewards. Staking SOL from Phantom, or ETH through a liquid staking token, generally produces ordinary income when you gain control of the rewards.
- Airdrops. Generally ordinary income at fair market value when you receive them and can use them.
- NFT sales and mints paid in crypto. Paying for an NFT with ETH or SOL is a disposal of that ETH or SOL.
And what generally is not:
- Moving coins between your own wallets. A transfer, not a sale.
- Receiving spam tokens you never asked for and can’t sell. These clutter the history more than they change the tax, but they have to be identified and handled, not ignored by default.
- Just holding.
Fees matter too. Gas and network fees usually adjust your basis or proceeds, and a fee paid in crypto is itself a small disposal.
The real problem: the exchange form and the wallet don’t agree
Here is how this goes wrong in practice. You buy ETH on an exchange, withdraw it to MetaMask, trade on-chain for a year, then send what’s left back to an exchange and sell.
The exchange’s 1099-DA shows the sale. For coins that arrived from outside, it often shows no cost basis, because the exchange never saw what happened in the wallet. Filed as-is, that reads as pure profit. Meanwhile every swap you made on-chain appears on no form at all.
So the form overstates one part of your year and is silent on the rest. The only thing that fixes both is your own wallet history. We go deeper on this in the self-custody transfer basis gap and what to do when your 1099-DA is missing cost basis.
How to file wallet and DEX activity without a form
- List every address. Every Phantom account, every MetaMask account, every chain. People routinely forget the second and third accounts inside the same wallet app.
- Pull the full transaction history for each address, for the whole period you’ve used it, not just the tax year. Basis comes from what you paid, and that may be years back.
- Match the transfers. Each withdrawal from an exchange should pair with a deposit into a wallet, and the reverse. Unmatched transfers are where tax software invents gains.
- Classify what’s left. Swap, income, fee, transfer, spam.
- Report disposals on Form 8949 and income on your return, even though no form was issued. Form 8949 has a category for transactions that weren’t reported to you on a 1099.
Cost basis is tracked wallet by wallet now, not pooled across everything you own, which makes step 3 matter more than it used to.
If you skipped prior years
If earlier returns left out wallet or DEX activity because no form showed up, that is fixable by amending. See unreported crypto gains and amending after finding a forgotten wallet. Sooner is better than waiting to be asked.
When it’s worth handing off
A wallet with a handful of swaps is manageable in software. A wallet with a few thousand transactions across Solana and three EVM chains, a bridge or two, and some liquidity positions usually is not. The symptom is a report showing a gain bigger than you ever had in the account.
That reconstruction is what Blockchain Crypto Tax Prep does: rebuild the history across wallets and exchanges, tie it to any 1099-DA you received, and hand back a return that matches the ledger. Start at cryptotaxprep.io or call 410-216-4632.
Quick answers
Does Phantom wallet report to the IRS?
No. Phantom is a self-custody wallet and does not issue Form 1099-DA. Activity in it is still taxable and still has to be reported on your return.
Does MetaMask report to the IRS?
No. MetaMask is self-custody wallet software and does not issue tax forms for your transactions. You are responsible for reporting swaps, sales and income from it.
Does Uniswap report to the IRS?
No. Uniswap is a decentralized exchange and does not issue Form 1099-DA. Rules that would have required DeFi front ends to report were repealed in 2025.
Do I have to pay taxes on swaps in my wallet if I never cashed out?
Generally yes. A crypto-to-crypto swap is treated as a disposal of the token you gave up, whether or not any dollars reached your bank.
Can the IRS see my wallet?
Blockchains are public, and a wallet becomes linked to you whenever it sends to or receives from an exchange account in your name. Treat wallet activity as visible.
Which crypto platforms do send a 1099-DA?
Custodial brokers, such as US centralized exchanges, for sales starting with the 2025 tax year. See our guide to which exchanges report.
Written by Blockchain Crypto Tax Prep. General information only, not tax advice.
[MIKE: REVIEW CHECKLIST, delete before publishing]
- [ ] Self-custody wallets (Phantom, MetaMask) and DEXs (Uniswap, Jupiter) issue no Form 1099-DA
- [ ] 1099-DA comes from custodial brokers, for sales starting with the 2025 tax year
- [ ] DeFi broker reporting rules finalized late 2024 were repealed by Congress in 2025 before taking effect. Still current today?
- [ ] The line about a payment company behind a wallet’s “buy” button possibly having its own reporting duties: accurate enough as hedged, or cut?
- [ ] Wallet swap = disposal, capital gain/loss, Form 8949
- [ ] Staking rewards = ordinary income when you gain control (liquid staking mention: keep or cut?)
- [ ] Airdrops = ordinary income at FMV on receipt
- [ ] Paying for an NFT in crypto = disposal of the crypto
- [ ] Own-wallet transfers not taxable
- [ ] Spam tokens: wording OK? (“identified and handled, not ignored by default”)
- [ ] Gas adjusts basis or proceeds; fee paid in crypto is itself a disposal
- [ ] Exchange 1099-DA often shows no basis for transferred-in coins
- [ ] Form 1040 digital asset question, signed under penalty of perjury
- [ ] Form 8949 has a category for transactions not reported on a 1099 (no box letters cited on purpose)
- [ ] Per-wallet basis tracking
- [ ] “Exchange records have been turned over to the IRS under court order before” — fine as stated?
- [ ] “Sooner is better than waiting to be asked” in the prior-years section: OK, or too close to advice?
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.
