a16z and DeFi Education Fund Join Fight Against Illinois Crypto Tax

The crypto industry just added heavyweight backup in its fight with Illinois. On Thursday, the DeFi Education Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm and Uniswap led a group filing an amicus brief backing the legal challenge to the state's Digital Asset Tax Act.

The brief argues the law is too broad and unfairly targets blockchain transactions. It points out that roughly 2.64 million Illinoisans hold digital assets — the fifth-highest total of any state, according to the filing. The signers say the Act singles out blockchain transactions for unfavorable tax treatment.

More than a dozen other outfits put their names on the brief: Aave Labs, Aptos Labs, Aztec Labs, Chainlink Labs, the Decentralization Research Center, Dromos Labs, Figment Inc., the Hyperliquid Policy Center, Jito Labs, Multicoin Capital Management LLC, Orca Creative, Phantom Technologies, the Solana Policy Institute and Stand With Crypto.

The filing lands in a widening courtroom brawl. The Blockchain Association, the Crypto Council for Innovation and The Digital Chamber sued Illinois after Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Digital Asset Tax Act as part of the state's fiscal year 2027 budget planning.

The law slaps a 0.2% tax on digital asset transactions. It was set to kick in January 2027, but has since been pushed to July 2027. Industry advocates have called it unprecedented and are trying to block it outright.

The amicus group also says the law ignores the messy realities of the technology. In the brief, they argue it fails to draw clear lines between taxable digital asset business activity and the software and network infrastructure that lets users transact on their own.