Top Stories of The Week
IRS issues rules on digital asset reporting, says front-ends are brokers
The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued final regulations requiring brokers to report digital asset transactions, expanding existing reporting requirements to include front-end platforms that facilitate transactions involving digital assets for customers, such as decentralized exchanges.
Set to take effect in 2027, the rules mandate that brokers disclose gross proceeds from sales of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, including information regarding taxpayers involved in the transactions.
The final regulation says, “The only DeFi participants that are treated as brokers […] are trading front-end service providers.”
The document does not directly apply to all decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and their level of decentralization, focusing on front-ends as a source of information and tax disclosure.
US-listed Bitcoin, Ether ETFs tally $38.3B net inflows in launch year
United States spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds racked up a staggering $35.66 billion in net inflows in 2024 — far exceeding early industry estimates — while the spot Ether ETFs finished strong, seeing net inflows of $349.3 million in the last four trading days to reach $2.68 billion since launch.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) led the pack with $37.31 billion in net inflows, while the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) rounded out the top three with $11.84 billion and $2.49 billion, respectively, followed by Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) at $2.19 billion, according to Farside Investors.
These net inflows smashed an earlier $14 billion first-year estimate from Galaxy Digital’s research head Alex Thorn.
However, the spot Bitcoin ETFs didn’t finish too strong toward the year’s end, seeing a combined $1.33 billion in outflows…
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