Who needs Form 1099-DA data?

Crypto exchanges, consumer finance apps, wealth platforms, crypto payment processors and crypto kiosk operators that report their customers’ digital asset sales to the IRS, and the accounting firms that work with them.

Goldsky

Form 1099-DA data for brokers

Talk to our team

What is Form 1099-DA data?

Form 1099-DA data is the transfer history behind each customer’s form: every transfer in and out of their wallets, with its USD value at the time, from which proceeds and cost basis are worked out.

Exchanges, consumer apps and wealth platforms that act as brokers file Form 1099-DA with the IRS for their customers’ digital asset sales, and a gap in a customer’s history shows up as a wrong number on their form.

Goldsky can load each customer wallet’s full history, keep it current and supply USD values at transfer time; your tax engine calculates cost basis and your team issues the forms.

You can build Form 1099-DA data three ways: stream every customer transfer into your warehouse with Turbo Pipelines and add USD values from Feeds, export each customer wallet’s transfers with USD values from the Feeds transfers API, or have Feeds sync those transfers into your database.

How Form 1099-DA data is built

The diagram follows a year of customer activity from the trades on the chain to the forms you issue, and shows who does each step. Your setup may differ.

TurboLoad every transferFull history first, then live

Customers tradeBuys, sells and transfers all year

TurboWrite to your warehouseTransfer history per customer wallet

Work out cost basisYour tax engine joins and calculates

FeedsGet priced transfersUSD value at transfer time, per wallet

Issue the formsForm 1099-DA to the IRS and each customer

Goldsky

Ways to build Form 1099-DA data

Full history sits in your warehouse with the pipeline, and your tax engine joins USD values from Feeds; the transfers API exports a wallet’s history with values on each call, and the synced feed keeps those rows current in your database.

Usual setupOption 1: Stream to your warehouse

Best for: Every customer wallet, full history in your warehouse
Products: Turbo Feeds
What you run: The destination: your database, queue or bucket, or a Postgres database Goldsky hosts
What you write: Pipeline YAML and SQL; TypeScript transforms when needed
Where your data lives: In your own database or systems
How results reach you: Pushed to you

Option 2: Transfers API

Best for: One export per customer wallet
Products: Feeds
What you run: Nothing; you call an endpoint and keep what you need
What you write: REST requests
Where your data lives: Hosted by Goldsky
How results reach you: Returned when you call

Option 3: Synced transfers feed

Best for: Every customer wallet, kept current
Products: Feeds
What you run: The destination database or endpoint
What you write: Nothing to get the rows; your own SQL to use them
Where your data lives: In your own database or systems
How results reach you: Pushed to you

Ways to build Form 1099-DA data
	Usual setupOption 1: Stream to your warehouse	Option 2: Transfers API	Option 3: Synced transfers feed
Best for	Every customer wallet, full history in your warehouse	One export per customer wallet	Every customer wallet, kept current
Products	Turbo Feeds	Feeds	Feeds
What you run	The destination: your database, queue or bucket, or a Postgres database Goldsky hosts	Nothing; you call an endpoint and keep what you need	The destination database or endpoint
What you write	Pipeline YAML and SQL; TypeScript transforms when needed	REST requests	Nothing to get the rows; your own SQL to use them
Where your data lives	In your own database or systems	Hosted by Goldsky	In your own database or systems
How results reach you	Pushed to you	Returned when you call	Pushed to you

Option 1: Build Form 1099-DA data by streaming to your warehouse

A pipeline backfills every customer wallet’s transfer history into your warehouse and keeps it current. USD values at transfer time come from the Feeds transfers API, and your tax engine joins them and works out cost basis.

When to stream customer transfers to your warehouse

You report for many customers, want every transfer kept in your own warehouse, and your tax engine reads from there.

What you’ll need

Goldsky Turbo
Goldsky Feeds
A record of which wallets belong to which customer
A data warehouse or object store
A tax engine that calculates cost basis and produces the forms

Record customer activity through the year
Every buy, sell and transfer a customer makes can change what they owe in tax.
Customers trade through your platform and move tokens in and out of their wallets. A transfer in from outside brings an asset whose cost you may not know, so record how many units arrived and when, which Form 1099-DA asks for when that asset is later sold.
Load every transfer, past and new
Handled by Goldsky Turbo
Cost basis depends on the first purchase, so the history has to reach back to each wallet’s first transfer and keep going.
Backfill each customer wallet’s full history, then keep adding new transfers. A history that starts late leaves early purchases out and basis unknown, which is also why coins transferred in from another wallet or exchange often show a blank cost basis on Form 1099-DA.
Goldsky’s Turbo Pipelines backfills the history once in job mode, filtered to your customers’ wallets, then a streaming pipeline keeps new transfers coming.
Run a one-time backfill job (opens in a new tab)
Write transfer history to your warehouse
Handled by Goldsky Turbo
The tax engine reads one place that holds every customer’s transfers.
Store each transfer with customer wallet, chain, token, amount, direction, time and transaction. Rows a reorg removes have to come out, or a customer is taxed on a transfer that never settled.
The pipeline can write Parquet files to S3-compatible storage, partitioned by columns such as date, for your warehouse to query; append-only files receive reorg corrections as records to apply.
Write transfers to S3 as Parquet (opens in a new tab)
Get USD values at transfer time
Handled by Goldsky Feeds
Proceeds and basis are measured in dollars at the time of each transfer.
Fetch each wallet’s transfers with their USD values and keep the value you used, because a price read later can differ.
Feeds returns each wallet’s transfers with price_usd and amount_usd at transfer time from its transfers endpoint, with major stablecoins valued at 1.0.
Read the transfers endpoint reference (opens in a new tab)
Work out cost basis and gains
Tax is owed on the gain, which is what a customer received from a sale less what they paid for the asset.
Your tax engine matches each sale to the purchases it came from, under the lot method you report with, and calculates proceeds, basis and gain. A missing purchase in a customer’s history leaves basis unknown and the form wrong.
Issue the tax forms
Brokers file their customers’ results with the IRS and send each customer a copy.
Each customer’s sales go on Form 1099-DA. Keep the transfer history and calculations behind every form, because corrections and customer questions arrive months after filing.

What to know about streaming tax data to your warehouse

Prices come from a separate call per wallet, so the tax engine joins them to transfers by chain, transaction and token.
The pipeline covers every transfer you filter for, so history doesn’t depend on a per-wallet API.
Cost basis, lot methods and the forms stay in your tax engine.
Goldsky runs the pipeline; you own the warehouse and the calculations.

Option 2: Build Form 1099-DA data with a wallet transfers API

Your tax process calls the Feeds transfers endpoint for each customer wallet and exports its transfers with the USD value at transfer time. Your tax engine works out cost basis from the export.

When to export tax data from a transfers API

Your customers hold native tokens and ERC-20s on chains the API covers, and an export per wallet at reporting time fits your process.

What you’ll need

Goldsky Feeds
A record of which wallets belong to which customer
A store for each export and the values you used
A tax engine that calculates cost basis and produces the forms

Record customer activity through the year
Every buy, sell and transfer a customer makes can change what they owe in tax.
Customers trade through your platform and move tokens in and out of their wallets. A transfer in from outside brings an asset whose cost you may not know, so record how many units arrived and when, which Form 1099-DA asks for when that asset is later sold.
Export each customer wallet’s transfers with USD values
Handled by Goldsky Feeds
The tax engine needs every transfer for the year with its USD value.
Page through each wallet’s full history for the tax year, both directions, including tokens without a price. Transfers have no ID, so keep identical transfers in one transaction as separate rows.
With Goldsky, the Feeds transfers endpoint returns a wallet’s native and ERC-20 transfers with amount_usd at transfer time, filtered by from and to dates.
Read the transfers endpoint reference (opens in a new tab)
Store the export
The numbers on a form have to be traceable to the data behind them.
Save each wallet’s export with the values you used, since a later request can return different prices. A form you can’t rebuild is hard to correct.
Work out cost basis and gains
Tax is owed on the gain, which is what a customer received from a sale less what they paid for the asset.
Your tax engine matches each sale to the purchases it came from, under the lot method you report with, and calculates proceeds, basis and gain. A missing purchase in a customer’s history leaves basis unknown and the form wrong.
Issue the tax forms
Brokers file their customers’ results with the IRS and send each customer a copy.
Each customer’s sales go on Form 1099-DA. Keep the transfer history and calculations behind every form, because corrections and customer questions arrive months after filing.

What to know about exporting tax data from an API

Native and ERC-20 transfers only; NFTs and DeFi positions need another source.
The API values each transfer when you request it, so keep the export you filed from.
Cost basis is calculated on your side.
Your code pages through each wallet’s history; there’s nothing to run between exports.

Option 3: Build Form 1099-DA data with a synced transfers feed

Feeds pushes each customer wallet’s new transfers, with USD values, into your database as they land, so the tax data stays current through the year.

When to sync transfers with USD values for tax reporting

You want every customer wallet’s transfers and USD values kept current in your own database, without defining a pipeline.

What you’ll need

Goldsky Feeds
A record of which wallets belong to which customer
A database or webhook endpoint you run to receive the rows
A tax engine that calculates cost basis and produces the forms

Record customer activity through the year
Every buy, sell and transfer a customer makes can change what they owe in tax.
Customers trade through your platform and move tokens in and out of their wallets. A transfer in from outside brings an asset whose cost you may not know, so record how many units arrived and when, which Form 1099-DA asks for when that asset is later sold.
Sync transfers and USD values into your database
Handled by Goldsky Feeds
Each customer’s transfers, with their USD values, build up in one place through the year.
Each row needs wallet, token, amount, direction, time, transaction and value. A wallet missing from the sync means a customer’s form is missing transfers.
Feeds can sync the transfers feed to a Postgres, MySQL or ClickHouse database you own as new rows land.
Sync Feeds to your database (opens in a new tab)
Work out cost basis and gains
Tax is owed on the gain, which is what a customer received from a sale less what they paid for the asset.
Your tax engine matches each sale to the purchases it came from, under the lot method you report with, and calculates proceeds, basis and gain. A missing purchase in a customer’s history leaves basis unknown and the form wrong.
Issue the tax forms
Brokers file their customers’ results with the IRS and send each customer a copy.
Each customer’s sales go on Form 1099-DA. Keep the transfer history and calculations behind every form, because corrections and customer questions arrive months after filing.

What to know about syncing tax data

Rows arrive in the Feeds schema, so the tax engine reads those columns.
Data stays current through the year, so year-end isn’t one large export.
Cost basis, and dropping transfers that never became final, stay on your side.
Goldsky runs the sync; you own the destination.

What you control

Your team: Work out cost basis and gains
Issue the tax forms

Questions and answers

What is Form 1099-DA?

Form 1099-DA is the IRS form a broker files to report its customers’ sales and exchanges of digital assets. A copy goes to the customer. For sales after 2025 it carries gross proceeds for every digital asset, and cost basis for assets that count as covered securities, so the broker needs each customer’s full transfer history and the value of each transfer when it happened.

What is Form 1099-DA used for?

Form 1099-DA tells the IRS and the customer what the customer received from selling or exchanging digital assets through a broker. The customer uses it when reporting gains and losses on their tax return. For sales after 2025 it shows gross proceeds, and cost basis where the asset is a covered security.

Who has to file Form 1099-DA?

A U.S. digital asset broker files Form 1099-DA for the sales of digital assets it carries out for customers. Brokers include platforms that stand ready to sell digital assets for others and digital asset middlemen, such as owners and operators of crypto kiosks and processors of digital asset payments. A payment processor doesn’t have to report a customer’s payment sales if they total $600 or less for the year.

Why is cost basis missing on Form 1099-DA?

Brokers have to report cost basis only for covered securities: digital assets acquired after 2025 in an account the broker held in custody and kept there until the sale. Assets bought before 2026, or transferred in from another wallet or broker, are noncovered, so reporting their basis is voluntary and the broker may leave it off. For assets transferred into a custodial account, the form reports how many units came in and, if they arrived on one date, the transfer-in date.