Daines releases draft crypto tax bill covering stablecoins and staking
Republican senator Steve Daines has released the text of a bill to update the tax code for digital assets, sponsored with senators Lummis, Moreno and Tim Scott. The Aligning Digital Assets with Principles of Taxation Act, or ADAPT Act, was released on Wednesday and proposes rules for stablecoins, network fees, staking and lending. The bill now goes to committee, which must approve it before it can reach a vote by the full Senate.
The proposal lands amid a wider push to write rules for digital assets. Lawmakers and regulators have been moving quickly since President Trump took office on a pro-crypto platform, and the Clarity Act collapsed in the Senate last month. One day later, the House Ways and Means Committee overwhelmingly approved legislation that would revamp the tax treatment of cryptocurrency.
Under the ADAPT Act, everyday spending of a qualifying dollar stablecoin on goods or services would not trigger a gain or loss, and brokers would not have to report those transactions. To qualify, a stablecoin would have to be issued under the GENIUS Act framework, appear on a quarterly Treasury list of coins that have held within 3 per cent of $1.00, and have been bought within 3 per cent of $1.00.
Network or gas fees paid in crypto would be tax-free dispositions as long as the fees for a given transaction total $10 or less, with anti-structuring rules attached. The bill would also apply wash sale rules to crypto for the first time, barring investors from claiming a tax loss if they sell an asset and buy it back within 30 days — a restriction stock investors have long faced, while crypto traders could sell at a loss and rebuy immediately.
The wash sale rules would cover traded digital assets other than qualified stablecoins. Assets bought before the bill becomes law would be grandfathered, and staking rewards, mining rewards and regular recurring purchases would be exempt. Tokenised versions of stocks would count as "substantially identical" to the underlying shares. In a post on X, Daines said that digital assets have moved into the mainstream but the tax code has not kept up, adding that his bill would create clearer rules for stablecoins, network fees, staking and lending.
