The Infrastructure Act's New Digital-Asset Reporting Rules: Why Crypto Recordkeeping Is a Now-Problem Even Though the Forms Arrive in 2024

Key takeaways

• IIJA § 80603 amended IRC § 6045 to expand "broker" to include "any person who (for consideration) is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person," and defined "digital asset" broadly.
• Digital assets become covered securities subject to basis and gain-character reporting, and brokers must furnish transfer statements when assets move to wallets not maintained by a broker.
• The reporting requirements apply to returns filed and statements furnished after December 31, 2023 — the 2023 tax year, first reports in early 2024. Digital assets are treated as covered securities for acquisitions beginning January 1, 2023.
• A separate provision treats digital assets as "cash" under IRC § 6050I, extending the $10,000 Form 8300 reporting rule to certain crypto receipts in a trade or business — a change critics flagged as legally and practically fraught.

What the statute does

The digital-asset provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Pub. L. 117-58) are concentrated in section 80603. They do several distinct things, and it is worth separating them because they bite at different times and raise different questions.

An expanded definition of "broker." Section 80603 amended IRC § 6045(c)(1) to add to the definition of broker "any person who (for consideration) is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person." That is the operative language, and its breadth is the source of nearly all the controversy discussed below.

A broad definition of "digital asset." The Act added a definition: "any digital representation of value which is recorded on a cryptographically secured distributed ledger or any similar technology as specified by the Secretary." The phrase "except as otherwise provided by the Secretary" introduces it — meaning Treasury was handed authority to shape the contours, authority it has not yet exercised.

Basis reporting. Digital assets are added to the definition of "specified security," which makes them "covered securities" for purposes of § 6045(g). Brokers will therefore have to report adjusted basis and whether gain is short- or long-term, the same way they do for stocks.

Transfer statements. The Act amended IRC § 6045A to require a broker to file a return reporting a transfer of a covered-security digital asset from an account it maintains to an account that is not maintained by, or an address not associated with, a person the broker knows or has reason to know is also a broker. In practice, that means reporting when crypto leaves a reporting platform for an outside or self-custodied wallet.

The § 6050I extension. Section 80603 also amended IRC § 6050I to add digital assets to the definition of "cash." The pre-existing rule requires any person engaged in a trade or business who receives more than $10,000 in cash in one transaction — or related transactions — to file a Form 8300 reporting the payer's name, address, and taxpayer identification number. Folding digital assets into "cash" extends that reporting obligation to certain crypto receipts.

The timing: 2024 forms, but a 2023 — and a now — problem

The reporting obligations do not take effect immediately. By the Act's terms, they apply to returns required to be filed, and statements required to be furnished, after December 31, 2023. That means the first reporting covers the 2023 calendar year, with forms landing in early 2024.

Two earlier dates matter, though, and they are why this is not a problem to set aside until 2023. First, digital assets are treated as covered securities for acquisitions on and after January 1, 2023 — so the basis a broker will eventually report begins accumulating with 2023 acquisitions. Second, and more practically, basis reporting is only as good as the basis records that exist. An investor or platform that has not been tracking acquisition dates, amounts, and cost across years of transactions — including transfers between wallets and platforms — will not be able to produce accurate basis when reporting begins. Reconstructing that history after the fact is far harder than maintaining it.

So the honest framing for clients is that the compliance clock has effectively already started. The forms are a 2024 event; the recordkeeping discipline that makes those forms accurate is a present one.

The Act includes a rule of construction stating that nothing in the section creates any inference, for periods before the effective date, about whether a person is a broker or an asset is a specified security. That is a genuine, period-relevant feature: it signals that pre-2024 status was deliberately left unsettled rather than implicitly decided.

The open question: who is a "broker"?

The breadth of the new broker definition is the live controversy, and as of now it is unresolved. The statutory language — anyone who, for consideration, regularly provides a service "effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person" — reads naturally to cover centralized exchanges. The concern is what else it might reach. Industry participants have argued that, taken literally, the language could sweep in miners and validators who confirm transactions, node operators, and developers of hardware and software wallets — none of whom hold the customer identifying information that broker reporting assumes, and some of whom have no customer relationship at all.

The statute does not answer this. It leaves the contours to Treasury through the "as specified by the Secretary" hook, and Treasury has not yet issued guidance. The realistic posture today is that the outer boundary of "broker" is genuinely uncertain. Centralized exchanges and custodial platforms should plan on being covered and should begin building the systems they will need. Parties further from the customer relationship — miners, validators, wallet developers — face an open question that future guidance will have to resolve, and should track that guidance rather than assume either inclusion or exemption.

This uncertainty is not hypothetical hand-wringing. It was the subject of a public fight during the Senate's consideration of the bill. Two competing amendments — one narrowing "broker" to exclude miners, validators, and wallet developers, and a second, narrower carve-out said to be acceptable to Treasury — were offered in August. Neither was adopted; an effort to pass a compromise by unanimous consent collapsed amid unrelated objections, and the broad original language was enacted unchanged. The scope question was left open on purpose, or at least by default.

The § 6050I controversy

The extension of § 6050I to digital assets drew separate and pointed criticism. Requiring a trade or business that receives more than $10,000 in digital assets to file a Form 8300 identifying the payer raises practical and constitutional concerns: how a recipient is to obtain and verify the name, address, and taxpayer identification number of a counterparty in a peer-to-peer or on-chain transaction, and whether mandatory reporting of that information implicates privacy and Fourth Amendment interests. The $10,000 threshold and the Form 8300 mechanics themselves are not new — they are long-standing § 6050I law. What is new is that digital assets now count as "cash" for that rule. Businesses that accept significant crypto payments should treat this as a coming compliance obligation and watch for guidance on how it is meant to operate.

What to do now

For exchanges, custodians, and other platforms that plainly fall within the new broker definition, the work is to begin building basis-tracking and reporting infrastructure for the 2023 tax year, since the first reports come in early 2024 and accurate basis depends on records kept from the start. For investors, the priority is recordkeeping: capturing acquisition dates, amounts, and cost basis across all wallets and platforms, including transfers, so that defensible basis exists when reporting begins. For businesses accepting digital assets, the § 6050I extension should be on the radar as a future Form 8300 obligation. And for parties at the edges of the "broker" definition — miners, validators, wallet developers — the right move is to monitor Treasury guidance closely, because the statute left their status genuinely open. The reporting era for digital assets has been written into law; the work of being ready for it starts before the forms do.

FAQ

When do the new digital-asset reporting rules take effect? The reporting requirements apply to returns filed and statements furnished after December 31, 2023 — covering the 2023 tax year, with first reports in early 2024. Digital assets are treated as covered securities for acquisitions beginning January 1, 2023.

Does the new "broker" definition cover miners and wallet developers? That is unresolved. The statutory language is broad, and industry has argued it could reach miners, validators, and wallet developers who hold no customer information. The statute leaves the contours to Treasury, which has not yet issued guidance.

Why should I track basis now if reporting starts in 2024? Because accurate basis reporting depends on records that already exist. Investors who have not tracked acquisition dates, amounts, and cost across wallets and platforms will struggle to produce correct basis when reporting begins, and reconstructing it later is difficult.

What changed under § 6050I? Digital assets are now treated as "cash." That extends the existing rule — a trade or business receiving more than $10,000 in cash must file a Form 8300 identifying the payer — to certain digital-asset receipts.