Kraken will send customer data to the IRS

Crypto exchange Kraken will share customer information with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The changes will affect users whose transactions exceeded $20,000 between 2016 and 2020, said The Block with a link to the Kraken email.

In June 2023, a US Federal Court ordered Kraken to hand over information about customer accounts and transactions to the Internal Revenue Service. According to the statement, the exchange will provide data on users who have made financial transactions of more than $20,000 within one calendar year.

The order said the information includes names, dates of birth, taxpayer identification numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and transaction histories from 2016 to 2020.

The IRS requested more detailed information, including users’ IP addresses, employment information, sources of income and net worth. However, the crypto exchange managed to convince the court to “significantly reduce” the amount of customer data that must be provided, Kraken representatives said.

Previously, the IRS requested information about 59,331 users of the trading platform, but during negotiations, lawyers managed to reduce this number to 42,017.

Kraken is not the only exchange that will send user information to the IRS. In 2018, Coinbase shared information about approximately 13,000 customers with the IRS. In 2021, the IRS sent a similar request to crypto exchange Poloniex and USDC stablecoin issuer Circle.