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Showing posts from January, 2019

Tax season: How to identify taxable US crypto gain/loss?

Claim your crypto losses Disclaimer: This is not tax advice. For tax advice, you should consult with tax professionals.  The purpose of this article is to illustrate how a simple crypto transaction: Buying one crypto with another crypto   may generate something that the US authorities consider as a taxable gain or loss, also called a tax event. For the purpose of this article, we will assume the following transactions: First transaction is: buying Ethereum (ETH) with US dollars Second transaction is: buying Lumens (XLM) with Ethereum (ETH) a day later  In the real world, what's happening is that the day you bought ETH, ETH price was let's say, $600 a piece (remember HODLERS from the last crypto winter? ) So you spent $600 to acquire 1 ETH.  You didn't think much about that ETH  price because your target was to buy XLM. Back then XLM couldn't be bought directly with US dollars, hence you bought ETH as a pivot. A day later when you finally com...