Start with what you hold

The 2025 IRS figures on this page and the September 2026 legal-status snapshot coexist, because the published loss limits come from the 2025 edition of Publication 550 while the enacted-versus-proposed picture is dated separately.

As of September 26, 2026, direct holdings of ordinary spot cryptocurrency sit outside the enacted stock-or-securities wash-sale rule. That is the answer to "can I sell at a loss and buy it back right away" for a coin you hold yourself in a taxable account. Shares are a different instrument.

As of the same date, crypto-related corporate stock and ordinary crypto ETF or fund shares are stock or securities, and the existing wash-sale rule can reach them when substantially identical shares are reacquired inside the 30 days on either side of a loss sale.

Spot Bitcoin and Ether grantor-trust ETP shares carry an open tax-characterization question and are not categorically settled either way. Brokers may still apply wash-sale adjustments to them.

Holding type Dated rule status and decision boundary
Direct ordinary spot coins (self-custody or exchange account, taxable) Outside the enacted stock-or-securities wash-sale rule as of September 26, 2026. Evidence basis: Publication 550 (2025) names stock or securities and does not name digital assets generally; the application to ordinary spot coins is dated model knowledge as of September 26, 2026, not an explicit IRS exemption for every crypto instrument. Professional and commercial commentary checked in 2026 reads current law the same way. What changes the answer: enactment of a bill extending the rule to digital assets, on that bill's own effective-date trigger.
Fund shares and crypto-related stock Ordinary crypto ETF or fund shares and crypto-company stock are stock or securities, and the existing rule may apply to a substantially identical reacquisition within 30 days before or after the loss sale (status as of September 26, 2026). Spot Bitcoin/Ether grantor-trust ETP shares: the characterization question is unresolved, so the conservative position is to assume the rule applies to the share sale; broker reporting may already show a wash-sale adjustment. A direct coin sale followed by ETP share purchase, or the reverse, has no definitive crypto-specific substantially-identical guidance. What changes the answer: instrument-specific IRS guidance, or enactment.

What the 30-day rule actually says

Publication 550 (2025) puts the rule this way in its "Wash Sales" discussion: a loss on a sale or trade of stock or securities is disallowed when you acquire substantially identical stock or securities within 30 days before or 30 days after that sale.

That is a 61-day window with the sale in the middle, and the statutory provision behind it is Internal Revenue Code section 1091. The disallowed loss is not destroyed in a taxable account. It adds to the basis of the replacement shares, so the deduction moves to a later disposal rather than vanishing.

Two things in the same publication do different jobs, and conflating them is where most bad advice starts. The "Digital assets" discussion treats digital assets as property for federal income tax, a classification running from Notice 2014-21 through the more recent revenue rulings and procedures. Property classification is not a blanket exclusion from securities rules - plenty of property is also stock or securities.

The reason the rule does not reach an ordinary spot coin is the scope of the words "stock or securities," applied to that specific holding as of the September 26, 2026 snapshot above.

Three claims to stop repeating

  • Myth: all crypto exposure gets one tax answer. Fact: as of September 26, 2026, a direct spot coin and an ordinary crypto fund share fall on opposite sides of the enacted rule, and grantor-trust ETP shares have their own open characterization question.
  • Myth: a committee vote means the law changed. Fact: H.R. 10357 was approved in amended form by a committee on September 16, 2026 per professional commentary from that week. Committee approval is not enactment.
  • Myth: $3,000 is the ceiling on losses you can use. Fact: losses offset capital gains first with no $3,000 cap on that step. The $3,000 figure is only the annual limit against other income, and the remainder carries forward.

Fund shares, account changes, and the limits of a ticker swap

Ordinary securities are the easy part of this section. Sell shares of a crypto miner at a loss, buy the same shares back nine days later, and you have the textbook wash sale with the loss riding into replacement basis.

Grantor-trust ETP shares are where hypothetical case mistakes cluster. A holder reads that directly held Bitcoin escapes the rule, applies that answer to a spot Bitcoin trust share sale, and files a loss the broker has already adjusted away on the 1099-B.

Commercial commentary published in 2026 treats section 1091 as applying to spot Bitcoin ETF share sales across structures, and that is the safer filing position here. VanEck's published position runs the other way for grantor-trust-structured products such as HODL, on a look-through theory that the shareholder effectively owns Bitcoin directly.

The characterization question stays open; pick your position with an adviser, not from a forum post.

Selling IBIT and buying FBTC the same afternoon is not a clean exit.

No crisp IRS definition of "substantially identical" for cross-issuer spot Bitcoin ETFs turned up in the 2026 commercial sources we reviewed, and positions range from treating a different issuer as a different security to waiting 31 days.

Neither an issuer swap nor a calendar pause is a safe harbor. The same uncertainty applies in the other direction: coin out, ETP shares in, or shares out and coin in.

The IRA branch is the expensive one.

A replacement purchase inside your traditional or Roth IRA, including an automatic recurring buy or a dividend reinvestment you forgot was running, can trigger a wash sale whose loss is permanently disallowed with no basis recovery anywhere - the IRA has no outside basis to carry it.

Brokers flag same-account, same-ticker wash sales. They do not see your spouse's account, your other broker, or your IRA at a third firm, so the cross-account reconciliation is yours.

One structural note, since BITO gets dragged into this. The wash-sale rule does not apply to section 1256 contracts, and BITO holds Bitcoin futures.

That treatment belongs to the fund's contracts, not to you: BITO is a regulated investment company, not a grantor trust, and your own sale of BITO shares gets ordinary capital gain or loss treatment as a securities sale.

Proposed changes and the dates that matter

Two separate bills are in circulation, and merging them produces a wrong answer about both. Keep the names and dates apart.

H.R. 9172, the Applying Existing Tax Anti-Abuse Rules to Digital Assets Act, was introduced June 8, 2026 and referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. It would extend section 1091 to most digital assets for dispositions after the bill's own introduction date.

It carves out qualifying USD stablecoins along with certain acquisitions from mining, staking, and validation activity. That snapshot comes from professional commentary at Taxstra checked August 10, 2026 in our source register, not from the official legislative record.

H.R. 10357, the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, was introduced September 14, 2026 and is further along. It would apply the wash-sale rule to crypto sold after September 14, 2026 if enacted, and the Ways and Means Committee voted 38-5 on September 16, 2026 to advance an amended version.

It also carries a narrow relief provision conditioned on a taxpayer's section 475 dealer or trader election. That snapshot comes from GreenTraderTax commentary dated September 16-18, 2026 in our register.

What matters for a year-end trade is the shape of these triggers rather than the odds of passage.

Both proposals reach back to their own introduction dates rather than starting on the date of enactment, so a harvest executed in the fall of 2026 sits inside the window a later enactment would describe.

Neither bill has become law, and a committee vote is a procedural step in one chamber. We did not run a fresh legislative check for this page; the dates above are exactly as our sources recorded them.

What an allowable loss can offset

Order of operations first. Capital losses offset capital gains, with no dollar cap on that step - a $40,000 loss against $40,000 of gains uses all of it. Only what remains after that netting meets the ordinary-income limit.

For tax year 2025, a remaining net capital loss can reduce other income by up to $3,000 per year, or $1,500 if you file married filing separately (current figure at the IRS), and never more than your total net loss.

Publication 550 (2025) sets that limit in its "Capital Losses" discussion, and the Schedule D instructions for 2025 state it as the lesser of $3,000 or the total net loss on the Schedule D line 16 amount.

Unused net capital loss carries to the next year and onward until used, keeping its short-term or long-term character; a long-term carryover meets next year's long-term gains before short-term ones. Publication 544 (2025) covers the same mechanics.

Reporting is short to describe: the disposal lands on Form 8949, the totals net on Schedule D, and any carryover appears on next year's return. For the categories and line routing, see how a crypto loss reaches Schedule D.

Three sale-and-repurchase scenarios

One set of numbers, three holdings. The point is that the transaction arithmetic is identical and the outcome is not.

Follow the same loss through three holdings (hypothetical illustrations; all amounts assumed)

Card A - direct ordinary spot coin, taxable account, tax year 2025. Supported basis $10,000, net proceeds $4,000, no fees, no prior carryover, $2,000 of other capital gains, enough other income to absorb the limit. The $6,000 loss meets the $2,000 of gains first, leaving $4,000.

Up to $3,000 reduces other income this year and $1,000 carries forward for a non-MFS filer. Married filing separately: $1,500 used, $2,500 carried. Repurchasing the same coin for $4,000 gives you a $4,000 basis in the new position.

That is a purchase cost, not a tax saving.

Card B - ordinary security, taxable account, same numbers. A substantially identical $4,000 repurchase inside the 61-day window makes the $6,000 loss a wash sale. Nothing from Card A's current-year deduction applies.

The disallowed $6,000 adds to the $4,000 replacement cost, so your basis in the new shares is $10,000 and the loss waits for a later sale.

Card C - same security, replacement bought in an IRA or Roth. The loss is disallowed and, because the replacement sits in the retirement account, there is no basis to add it to. It does not come back later.

This branch depends on the sold instrument being stock or securities; it is not an assertion that every cross-account crypto trade is covered.

Timing alone is not a guarantee in any of these.

Each card assumes a real executed disposal at arm's length with the proceeds actually received - commercial commentary we reviewed raises the economic-substance point, and a token round trip designed only to manufacture a loss is a weaker position than a genuine trade.

We have not turned that caution into a required waiting period, because the sources do not supply one. If Card A's $2,000 of gains is what you are trying to offset, compare the rate applied to an offset gain.

Sources

  1. IRS Publication 550 (2025), "Wash Sales," "Digital assets," "Capital Losses," "Figuring your carryover" - irs.gov/publications/p550 - 2025 edition; retrieved September 26, 2026. Primary source for the statutory scope, the 30-day acquisition window, property treatment of digital assets, the ordinary-income deduction cap, and the carryover rule. It is not an explicit current-law ruling on every crypto wrapper.
  2. IRS Publication 544 (2025), capital gains and losses, carryover - irs.gov/publications/p544 - 2025 edition; retrieval date not recorded. Supporting primary material for the capital-loss discussion.
  3. IRS Instructions for Schedule D (2025), capital-loss limit - irs.gov/instructions/i1040sd - tax year 2025; retrieval date not recorded. Source for the limit recap; detailed routing is linked out.
  4. Taxstra, crypto wash-sale rules and H.R. 9172 - taxstra.com/crypto-wash-sale-rules - checked August 10, 2026 in our source register. Professional commentary, not the official legislative record.
  5. GreenTraderTax, digital-asset tax bill and H.R. 10357 - greentradertax.com - September 16-18, 2026 in the register. Professional commentary for the proposal and committee snapshot, not evidence of enactment.
  6. CountOnSheep, Bitcoin ETF taxes; VanEck grantor-trust position - countonsheep.com/blog/bitcoin-etf-taxes-2026 and vaneck.com - 2026; retrieval dates not recorded. Commercial instrument commentary, including the competing grantor-trust characterization and the IRA and economic-substance points corroborated by fraimcpa.com, cointracking.info, and countdefi.com.

Decide what to check before a year-end trade

Work in this order, and write down what you find.

  1. Name the instrument. Direct spot coin, crypto-company stock, ordinary crypto fund share, grantor-trust ETP share, or a futures-based fund such as BITO. Pull the fund's own structure description rather than guessing from the ticker.
  2. Date the rule you are relying on. The status on this page is September 26, 2026, and the two live proposals reach back to their introduction dates. If you trade in December, re-check whether either bill has been enacted.
  3. Reconcile basis and execution records before you sell. This is the step that sinks otherwise fine harvests. Missing acquisition history on a transferred position turns a clean $6,000 loss into an unsupportable number, and I have watched a whole season's harvest plan collapse because a wallet-to-exchange transfer arrived with no cost history and the receiving platform filled the gap with a zero. Fix the basis first, then trade.
  4. Inspect every account for replacement purchases. Your other broker, a spouse's taxable account, and above all any IRA or Roth with a recurring buy or reinvestment switched on. The 30 days run both directions from the sale.
  5. Work out how much of the loss you can actually use this year against gains, then against other income, then as a carryover.

On scrutiny: a correctly treated loss backed by acquisition records, disposal records, and a clear account map is a documented position, and that is what you control. Nobody can hand you an audit probability, and claiming a loss is not itself an event you should be avoiding.

Once you have classified the holding and mapped the accounts, calculate a tax-loss harvesting scenario to see the arithmetic on your own figures - as an illustration only, and always inside the rule boundaries above.

For adjacent filing steps, see the related crypto filing guides. A position that depends on how a grantor-trust share is characterized is worth an hour with a CPA or enrolled agent before you file.