While markets focused on price action in December 2025, the regulatory infrastructure for a global surveillance dragnet was quietly finalized. The OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) has now reached critical mass, turning what was once a voluntary patchwork into a mandatory global standard.

In early December, Chile and Georgia officially joined the framework, expanding the bloc of committed nations to over 50. Meanwhile, the European Union is racing to meet its December 31 deadline to transpose the DAC8 directive into national law, ensuring that by next year, the continent will be a unified data-sharing zone.​

A Degree of Intrusiveness Banks Never Faced

The implications for personal privacy are profound and, according to critics, unprecedented.

Under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) used by the banking sector, financial institutions typically report an account’s year-end balance and total income. They do not routinely transmit a line-item history of every coffee purchased or bill paid.

The new crypto rules invert this norm. Because crypto taxation often relies on calculating capital gains on every swap, CARF demands transaction-level reporting. If a user swaps Bitcoin for a stablecoin, that event—along with the timestamp and value—is packaged for export.

The Paradox
This creates a paradox: In France or Spain, a citizen is barred from using anonymous cash for purchases over €1,000 to prevent money laundering. Yet, under the new crypto regime, a digital transaction of just €50 is subject to permanent state recording. The result is a surveillance capability that surpasses the traditional banking system. Once a tax authority links a user’s identity to a wallet address, they can effectively "replay" the user's entire financial history on the public ledger.

In Finland, this is already policy. The tax authority, Vero, has confirmed that starting in 2026, service providers must report comprehensive data on all customer transactions, effectively granting the state real-time oversight of digital asset flows.​


The 2026 Reality
For investors, the window to organize historical data is closing. The "opt-in" approach to compliance, where users decided what to declare based on their own risk appetite, has been rendered obsolete by automation.

As one industry expert noted during the Blockpit analysis: "The state never had visibility of all your transactions from your bank. Now, they will have it for your crypto."