“Kraken’s cautionary message to users: Brace yourselves, as your Bitcoin trading data sets sail towards the watchful eyes of the IRS!”
Crypto exchange Kraken has announced that it will share data on tens of thousands of its users with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in compliance with a court order. The company will provide information on cryptocurrency transactions above $20,000 made by Kraken customers between 2016 and 2020. This includes the users’ name, date of birth, Tax ID, address, and contact information. Kraken has contacted all affected customers via email and plans to share the information with the IRS in early November.
Although Kraken resisted providing the IRS with the requested information, the company sees the court order as a victory for privacy advocates. Kraken’s spokesperson stated that they objected to the IRS’s demands for intrusive and unnecessary information about its clients and convinced the court to reject these demands. The company remains committed to protecting the privacy of its clients.
Kraken is not the first crypto company to comply with the IRS’s demands. In 2018, Coinbase was ordered to supply select user data, and in 2020, the IRS gained legal authority to access data from Circle, a crypto payments company. The agency also obtained a court order to request information from SFOX, a crypto prime brokerage.
This development highlights the ongoing tension between privacy and regulatory compliance in the cryptocurrency industry. As governments around the world seek to regulate digital assets, users’ personal data often becomes a point of contention.
