Canada’s CRA has won a court order forcing Dapper Labs to hand over data on 2,500 users, marking a significant step up in the country’s crypto tax enforcement.
summary
- After the CRA narrowed its initial request to about 18,000 accounts, a federal court order required Dapper Labs to share details about 2,500 users.
- Since 2020, the CRA has recovered C$100 million in unpaid crypto taxes, established a new Financial Crimes Authority, and plans to adopt the OECD CARF in 2026.
- Canadian regulators, including FINTRAC, have strengthened their 2025 measures, creating significant AML penalties for platforms such as Cryptomus and KuCoin, and tightening compliance across cryptocurrencies.
According to court documents filed in September 2025, the Canada Revenue Agency obtained a court order requiring Dapper Labs to provide detailed information about 2,500 platform users as part of an expanded investigation into undeclared crypto income.
Canada Revenue Agency investigates Dapper Labs users
A federal court order requires the Vancouver-based NFT platform to provide data about a specific group of customers, marking the second major investigation into crypto tax evasion in the country. The CRA initially requested information on approximately 18,000 accounts, but after negotiations narrowed the request down to 2,500 users, according to a statement from the CRA.
Dapper Labs, known for NFT products like NBA Top Shot and CryptoKitties, has not been accused of wrongdoing. The court order follows precedent established in 2020, when the CRA obtained customer data from Toronto-based exchange Coinsquare.
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According to CRA statistics, the agency has recovered more than C$100 million in unpaid taxes related to crypto activity in the past three years. However, despite ongoing investigations, the agency has not secured any convictions for crypto tax evasion since 2020.
CRA’s internal estimates indicate that up to 40% of users on a given platform may not be compliant with tax reporting requirements. Investigators cite the difficulty of gathering evidence across multiple jurisdictions and distributed platforms as obstacles to prosecution.
The federal government plans to establish a new Financial Crimes Agency by spring 2026 to strengthen its ability to investigate digital asset cases and streamline data collection, according to a government announcement.
Starting in 2026, Canada will implement the OECD’s Cryptoasset Reporting Framework, requiring cryptoasset service providers to annually report customer identities, account balances, and transaction data to the CRA. The framework aligns Canada with other countries that have adopted enhanced disclosure requirements for digital asset companies.
Canadian regulators stepped up enforcement actions in 2025. The country’s financial intelligence agency FINTRAC fined Kryptomus C$176.96 million for anti-money laundering violations and KuCoin C$19.5 million for similar violations, according to a statement from FINTRAC.
The combination of court-ordered data requests, upcoming CARF reporting requirements, and the planned Financial Crimes Authority represents a significant expansion of Canada’s approach to virtual currency taxation and compliance.
read more: Will Bitcoin reach $50 million by 2041? EMJ Capital’s Eric Jackson presents a bold theory
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