- Senator Cynthia Lummis is pushing to add a major crypto tax provision to President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
- The amendment would eliminate “double taxation” on staking and mining rewards by taxing those rewards only when they are sold.
- It would also exempt small cryptocurrency transactions under $300 (with an annual cap of $5,000) from taxation.
U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis is working to reshape how the United States taxes cryptocurrency by seeking to include a key crypto tax reform in the large spending bill that underpins much of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.
The proposed amendment aims to reduce both the tax burden and the administrative complexity tied to basic crypto activities such as staking, mining, and small retail transactions.
Lummis formally attempted to introduce her amendment into Congress’s “Big Beautiful Bill” on Monday.
Her language would, among other changes, exempt small crypto transactions under $300 from taxation, up to a total of $5,000 in such transactions per year.
Industry advocates say this carve-out would remove a significant headache for casual users, relieve the burden of calculating capital gains on minor digital-asset activity, and could encourage broader adoption among people who have been hesitant to try crypto.
Arguably the most consequential element of the amendment is its effort to rationalize what the industry regards as an unfair tax treatment of staking and mining rewards.
Under current practice, miners and stakers can face taxation twice: first when they receive newly created tokens or rewards, and again when they later sell those assets.
In a post on the social platform X on June 30, 2025, Senator Lummis defended the need for change:
For years miners and stakers have been TAXED TWICE. Once when they receive block rewards, and once when they sell them. It’s time to end this unfair tax treatment and ensure America is the world’s Bitcoin and crypto superpower. 🇺🇸
Echoing that view, the Digital Chamber, a prominent U.S. crypto lobbying group, said Monday that the proposal would “fix a long-standing mistake in how these rewards are treated for tax purposes.”
“Today, staking and block rewards are taxed at both acquisition and sale,” the group said, urging its supporters to ask Congress for backing.
Senator Lummis’s provision fixes that by taxing rewards only when they are sold, aligning the tax treatment with actual income realization.
Under Lummis’s amendment, assets acquired through staking, mining, airdrops, and network forks would receive consistent tax treatment: they would be taxed only upon final disposition, not at the moment of receipt.
The amendment, which has not yet been brought to a vote, also addresses tax issues related to crypto lending, wash sales, and charitable contributions.
It seeks to close a loophole tied to wash-trading that lawmakers have tried to plug for years. Under current rules, crypto investors can harvest tax losses by selling assets at a loss and immediately repurchasing them — a maneuver already prohibited for stocks and other securities.
A high-stakes legislative fight: the ‘vote-a-rama’
Senator Lummis attempted to add her amendment during a “vote-a-rama,” the unlimited amendment process that began Monday morning in the Senate.
The stakes for this wide-ranging spending bill are unusually high for Republicans in Congress.
Party leaders face a difficult task keeping all members unified behind the measure, given narrow Republican majorities in both chambers.
Democrats have united against the nearly 1,000-page bill, objecting to provisions that include potential Medicaid cuts, rollbacks of green energy initiatives, and other controversial elements.
Last month, the House of Representatives narrowly passed its own version of the massive spending package.
If the Senate approves a version with changes, the bill would return to the House for another vote.
Analysts estimate the legislation could add more than $3 trillion to the U.S. budget deficit, a figure that has alarmed fiscal conservatives and market watchers.
The fate of Lummis’s crypto amendment — and the “Big Beautiful Bill” itself — remains uncertain as lawmakers navigate these complex political and fiscal challenges.