Treasury Department

The conference room at Treasury felt different that morning. Not the hushed urgency of a financial crisis, nor the bureaucratic routine of a typical briefing. Something in between—a sense that the document being unsealed carried weight beyond its page count.

The envelope arrived in January with the understated urgency that government documents carry. Inside was my first Form 1099-DA from the exchange where I had sold some Bitcoin the previous year. The form listed gross proceeds, cost basis, and the gain I would