- Roughly 2.3 million US taxpayers told the Internal Revenue Service they traded cryptocurrencies in 2020, data from the agency show.
- The figures underscore crypto’s growing popularity before this year’s painful market rout and may also reflect the IRS’s efforts to ensure that filers disclose holdings and pay taxes on any gains.
According to data from the Internal Revenue Service, roughly 2.3 million US taxpayers traded cryptocurrencies in 2020.
That’s a 149% increase from 2019, when nearly 928,000 taxpayers answered “yes” to a question of whether they had received, sold, sent or otherwise acquired virtual currency.
The figures underscore crypto’s growing popularity before this year’s painful market rout and may also reflect the IRS’s efforts to ensure that filers disclose holdings and pay taxes on any gains.
A Federal Reserve study from late 2021 and released in May found 12% of American adults “held or used cryptocurrencies in the prior year”.
The IRS report on individual tax return data also showed Americans’ unemployment compensation jumped to $405 billion in 2020, from $21.4 billion in 2019.
Despite the economic fallout from the pandemic, government relief payments and a rise in investors’ capital gains helped total US individual income climb 5.2% to $12.7 trillion. Wages and salaries increased more slowly, by 1.7% to $8.4 trillion.
