Pick the code that describes what the company actually does. For most crypto LLCs that means holding assets for the owner’s own account, which sits somewhere else in the classification system from exchanging assets for customers. My view is that the code deserves ten minutes of honest thought and zero minutes of strategy, because you repeat it on forms others rely on.
Part of our guide: Wyoming Crypto LLC.
The short version
- No agency assigns you a NAICS code. The Census Bureau maintains the system and says it has no formal role as an arbitrator of classification.
- The 2022 index holds five virtual currency entries: mining at 518210, brokering, dealing, and exchange services at 523160, clearinghouses at 523999. Every one describes work done for somebody else.
- Holding for your own account and exchanging for customers are separate industries, and the index carries no entry at all for the holding case.
- The IRS charts are coarser than NAICS. Form 1065 offers 523900, which is no NAICS code at all, and Schedule C carries no holding company code.
- The same claim repeats on the EIN application, the return, and every onboarding form, and disagreement among the copies is its own problem.
Nobody hands you a code
NAICS exists so federal statistical agencies can sort establishments into comparable industries. The Census Bureau, which maintains it, is blunt about who does the sorting:
“There is no central government agency with the role of assigning, monitoring, or approving NAICS codes for establishments. Individual establishments are assigned NAICS codes by various agencies for various purposes using a variety of methods. The U.S. Census Bureau has no formal role as an arbitrator of NAICS classification.”
U.S. Census Bureau, NAICS Frequently Asked Questions
The standard is yours to meet, and both agencies apply one test: primary activity, generally whichever generates the most revenue. The Form 1065 instructions put it as determining “from which activity the business derives the largest percentage of its ‘total receipts.’” What does this company mostly do?
Holding and dealing sit in different places
Search the 2022 index for cryptocurrency and five entries come back. Mining lands in 518210, computing infrastructure and data processing. Brokering, dealing, and “virtual currency exchange services (i.e., selling to the public)” land in 523160, Commodity Contracts Intermediation, covering principals “buying or selling spot or futures commodity contracts or options” and the agents brokering them. Clearinghouses go to 523999. Each describes a company with counterparties it serves.
A family holding entity has none. It acquires assets, holds them, occasionally sells them, all for its own members’ account. With no index entry for that, the nearest descriptions are:
- 523910, Miscellaneous Intermediation covers principals who “buy or sell for their own account,” indexed with investment clubs and own-account speculators.
- 525990, Other Financial Vehicles covers legal entities that are funds, listing closed-end investment funds and special purpose financial vehicles.
- 551112, Offices of Other Holding Companies covers entities holding “the securities of (or other equity interests in) companies and enterprises for the purpose of owning a controlling interest.” Read it before reaching for it: an LLC holding coins directly and owning no subsidiaries does not literally fit.
The code reached for wrongly is 522320, Financial Transactions Processing, Reserve, and Clearinghouse Activities, illustrated by automated clearinghouses, credit card processing, and electronic funds transfers. It describes moving money for other people, so a company sending its own coins from its own wallet claims a money services business it does not operate.
The description moves when the activity does. A company that stakes its own coins, runs a validator for outsiders, or holds stablecoins as working capital has left the passive description behind.
Where the code shows up
Wyoming never asks. W.S. 17-29-201(b) requires the articles of organization to state only the company name and the initial registered agent’s name and address. The Secretary of State never records what the company does.
The first classification of record is the EIN application. The Form SS-4 instructions say to “check the one box on line 16 that best describes the principal activity of the applicant’s business,” then use line 17 to “describe the applicant’s principal line of business in more detail,” where “An entry is required.”
The return asks again, three ways. Form 1065 instructions, whose codes “are based on the North American Industry Classification System,” say to enter the six-digit code in item C, the business activity in item A, and “a brief description of the principal product or service” in item B. A single-member LLC treated as a disregarded entity reports on the owner’s return instead, where Schedule C line A takes the description and line B the code.
One detail trips people. The IRS charts are a collapsed subset. Form 1065’s securities and commodity contracts section offers only 523150, 523160, 523210, and 523900, and 523900 is no NAICS code at all, just industry group 5239 with a zero appended. Form 1065 carries 525990 and 551112 elsewhere; Schedule C carries neither. So the code you verified may have no counterpart on the form in front of you, leaving the parent category and the free-text line beside it to carry the precision. Onboarding forms ask again, and there the copies get compared.
What I actually see
Three patterns, and only one involves anyone behaving badly.
The first: the code gets chosen by whoever filled in a form fastest. A formation agent’s intake sheet, a preparer’s default from last year’s file, an owner clicking through an account application at midnight. I have looked at companies where the EIN record, the return, and the account application each said something different, and nobody knew.
The second: choosing a code to look less like crypto, usually a generic consulting or investment code that draws fewer questions. I will put my view bluntly. That is a misrepresentation on documents other parties rely on, the benefit is a few weeks of nobody asking anything, and every later answer must stay consistent with a false one. Do not do it.
The third runs the other way. An owner picks a dealing or exchange code because it sounds substantial, telling the IRS and a counterparty the company trades for customers. That is a regulated description, and it invites questions about registrations the company never obtained.
The check I would run takes ten minutes. Write one sentence of twenty-five words or fewer: “This company [does what] with [which assets] for [whom].” An answer of the owner or the members puts you in the own-account family; an answer of customers puts you in the dealing and exchange family. Then read the EIN application, the last filed return, and the most recent onboarding form against that sentence. Anything that disagrees is either a description needing correction or an activity you forgot about.
Where this goes wrong
The classification drifts away from the business while every copy of it stays frozen.
The failures cluster tightly. A company that began staking two years ago and never revisited its description. A code chosen from titles alone, without opening the cross-references, where NAICS does its real work of telling you what belongs elsewhere. An entity filed under 551112 that owns equity in no company. And the one that stings: the return says one thing, the onboarding form another, and the mismatch surfaces while somebody is already asking questions. In nearly every case, nobody owned the description.
The decision rule
Describe the business first. Choose the code second.
- Write the activity in one sentence before opening any code list: what the company does, and for whom.
- Identify the customer. An answer of the owner or the members puts the company in the own-account family.
- Search the 2022 NAICS index for the verb (holding, dealing, staking, mining) rather than the asset.
- Open the definition and the cross-references. Titles mislead; cross-references exist to redirect you.
- Confirm the code exists on the form you are filing, since the IRS charts collapse several NAICS industries into one entry.
- Fill in the free-text lines on SS-4 line 17, Form 1065 items A and B, and Schedule C line A.
- Record the choice, the reasoning, and the date, so the next person copies a decision instead of guessing.
- Revisit the description whenever the activity changes, starting the first time the company stakes, mines, or lends.
Where this sits
Classification is downstream of facts other decisions settle. What the entity is comes from the Wyoming LLC itself and whether crypto belongs in one. What it does comes from the custody arrangement and what the manager may do. What it can prove comes from the tax records. The code summarizes that in one line, so a code that reads wrong usually signals something upstream was never settled. The Wyoming LLC hub collects those threads.
These questions cross desks that rarely meet. The attorney forming the company answers to the statute and never sees a return. The CPA picks a code from a chart in the spring with no view of the custody setup. The owner usually completes the onboarding form from memory, months after both finished. Each answer is defensible alone. The failure lives at the join, where three of them describe three different companies and nobody is responsible for noticing.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, NAICS
- U.S. Census Bureau, NAICS FAQs
- 2022 NAICS, 523160 Commodity Contracts Intermediation
- 2022 NAICS, 551112 Offices of Other Holding Companies
- IRS, Instructions for Form 1065
- IRS, Instructions for Form SS-4
- Wyoming LLC Act, Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 17-29-201
Related
- What is a Wyoming digital asset LLC?
- Should I put my crypto in a Wyoming LLC?
- Crypto custody for LLCs
- Can a Wyoming LLC stake crypto?
- Common crypto tax record mistakes
- Crypto banking and exchange
Last updated: 3 August 2026.
This article is general education, not legal, tax, or investment advice. A business classification is a factual description of what a company does, and an inaccurate one creates problems on documents others rely on. Talk to a qualified attorney and CPA about your own situation.
