Illinois is the first state in the nation to impose a controversial transaction-based tax on digital asset activity, inserting the Digital Asset Tax Act, or the “cryptocurrency tax,” into the sweeping fiscal year 2027 budget bill with little public notice or industry input. Effective in 2027, the cryptocurrency tax imposes a 0.2% levy on the value of digital assets involved in each covered transaction — a novel and controversial approach that departs sharply from how…
On August 18, 2025, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed two bills that created, in his words, first-of-their-kind safeguards in the Midwest for cryptocurrency and other digital assets. The legislation was in part a response to an FBI report that Illinois consumers lost $272 million in fraud cases involving cryptocurrency in 2024, representing the most common type of financial fraud. And, not surprisingly for a person who reportedly sees himself as a future Democratic presidential candidate,…
We have previously written about how U.S. states have, one by one, passed legislation relating to blockchain. As we enter 2020, Illinois has become the latest state to do so. The Blockchain Technology Act took effect on January 1, 2020. Under the Act, “blockchain” is defined as “an electronic record created by the use of a decentralized method by multiple parties to verify and store a digital record of transactions which is secured by the…