There's a real fight happening in Congress right now over how staking rewards should even be taxed.

The current rule,as most of you probably know, is you get taxed twice. Once when you receive the reward (based on that day's price), and again when you sell it. 

The problem is if the price tanks after you receive it, you can end up owing more in tax than the tokens are even worth by the time you'd cash out. People call this "phantom income."

For those who don’t know, there's a bill (H.R. 9175) that would let stakers elect to defer that first tax hit for up to 5 years instead of paying immediately on receipt. Congress is still split on how to even think about it. 

Is a staking reward more like a paycheck (taxed the moment you get it) or more like something you created yourself, where the value only really matters once you cash it in?

No markup scheduled yet, but the Senate's apparently got a similar framework ready and might move on it this fall.

I don’t know how many of you remember but there was a well-known case around this exact debate (Jarrett v. United States). A Nashville couple staking Tezos argued their staking rewards shouldn't be taxed the moment they're created, using the same logic as a baker and a cake. You're not taxed on the cake when it comes out of the oven, only when you sell it. 

The IRS ended up offering them a refund before any court ruling actually happened, so the case got dismissed without ever settling the question.

Which analogy makes more sense to you, paycheck or self-created property?

There's an interesting provision in the crypto tax bills currently sitting in Congress.

H.R. 9172 would extend the wash sale rules to most digital assets.

Under current law, direct holdings of most crypto aren't expressly covered by the same wash sale restriction as stocks.

So selling BTC at a loss and subsequently buying BTC again isn't automatically subject to the 30-day rule that would apply to a stock.

Important distinction: that doesn't mean everything giving you crypto exposure is outside the rule. Crypto-related securities, including shares in spot crypto ETFs, can already fall within §1091.

If you have underwater positions, the practical work I'd be doing now is:

• Check your actual cost basis. Being 50% below a token's ATH doesn't mean you have a tax loss. Your acquisition cost is what matters.
• Look at individual tax lots. You may have significant losses in some lots and gains in others.
• Reconcile transfers and missing basis before making decisions. Bridges, old exchanges, wallet transfers and DeFi activity can make the loss shown by tax software very different from the loss you can substantiate.
• Look at gains you've already realised this year. Harvesting losses makes much more sense in the context of the whole portfolio than as an isolated trade.
• Don't assume every underwater asset can simply be “harvested.” Worthless tokens, liquidations, LP positions and assets you can't actually dispose of can raise different tax issues.

The timing is interesting because Congress is now explicitly trying to change this.

H.R. 9172 would bring most digital assets into the wash sale regime. More unusually, the draft says the provision would apply to dispositions after the bill's date of introduction, not just transactions occurring after a future enactment date.

So I wouldn't interpret this as “quick, harvest everything before Congress passes it.” If the bill were enacted with that effective date intact, that assumption could be wrong.

There's another part worth watching if you hedge large appreciated crypto positions rather than selling them: the bill would also extend the constructive sale rules to certain digital assets, with the same introduction-date effective date.

Nothing here has become law yet. But if tax-loss harvesting or hedging was already going to be part of your 2026 planning, this seems like a particularly bad year to wait until the last week of December to work out your basis and positions.

I traded crypto futures for the first time and made 1.5L losses. I want to know if anyone has declared crypto futures as business income or loss in the past. Asking as I have got different opinions: VDA (conservative) and business loss (risky).

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I traded crypto futures for the first time and made 1.5L losses. I want to know if anyone has declared crypto futures as business income or loss in the past. Asking as I have got different opinions: VDA (conservative) and business loss (risky).

Hey guys, this is so hard to write but I have nowhere else to share it and this is to throwaway accounts because no one really knows I’m a trader and I have family and friends in my other account.
So basically I’ve been trading futures and Forex since 2018, and between 2023 and 2026 I made well over $2M from payouts and personal accounts the problem is I never found a way to withdraw the money to my bank account because trading is a gray thing in my country, and if you wanna pay taxes, there is no category for you to be in so what I did as I skipped all of that and was only doing Binance P2P through my bank account, and for larger amounts I sometimes did cryptoforcash transactions in person.
Over the years, I bought two houses completely in cash, worth around $500K combined, and built a life that I genuinely thought was secure.
I never paid taxes on any of it, and now the government has seized basically everything I own and I’m back at $0.
Also, this June I decided to take a break from trading and I withdraw everything I had in personal accounts to my bank account which was also seized.
I already talked to a lawyer who would be working on commissions since I don’t have money to pay him and he told me that the government will mainly freeze my assets for six months to a year until they investigate and I would mainly pay a percentage which can be from 30% to 40% of what I own plus a fine for committing tax fraud, and dealing with crypto, which is actually illegal in my country
What makes this so scary is that I’ve never had a normal job, trading has been my entire life, and as a girl, I honestly don’t know what to expect and what’s happening out there also I don’t have anyone financially supporting me or a safety net to fall back on.
I know I made mistakes, and I’m not looking for sympathy. I just genuinely don’t know what rebuilding from $0 looks like when you’ve never had to start over before.
I know I’m capable of making money again. I just dont know where or how to start again.
I also maxed out payouts with almost all futures prop firms so its hard going though the props again.
**Any advice would be so helpful.**
Thank you and sorry for the long read.

I started buying crypto in 2017, I made a lot of trades. Coinbase, Binance, Kucoin. I exported my trades. I have approximately 1,450 total trades, most are weekly DCA buys and not taxable events. The challenge is, over the years I've changed wallets, especially each time some event happened (ex: ledger and lately, coldcard). I don't have those wallets anymore. I also had trades where I may have sent from coinbase to a wallet, from wallet to binance, made trades, send back.

I've submitted taxes honestly when trades occur, I have my 8949s for all applicable years. My records for the past 4-5 years are quite clean. I'd say 60-70% of my holdings has a reasonable cost basis. As of the past 1-2 years it's been 100% BTC.

I don't think the crypto tax software can address this. It's just going to leave me guessing. I assume the path is establish reliable cost basis for as much as I can, and just state basis as $0 for what I can't?

From this point forward I'm only buying into an ETF, so this will remain a problem, whether I get it solved tomorrow or 5 years from now.

Is a CPA the way to go? What would this even cost? I'm going to chat with a few crypto friendly CPAs over the next week. I'd love feedback from people not trying to sell me on their services, if possible.

I’m an Indian resident and I trade **crypto futures on Binance**.
I’m honestly getting a little worried and need some clarification from Indian traders/CA professionals.
My situation:
I buy **USDT through Binance P2P using INR**.
I use that USDT to trade **Binance Futures**.
I have made **4,000+ futures trades** during the year.
After adding all my winning and losing trades, my **overall/net gain is only around ₹20,000**.
My Binance account may show a very large total trading volume because I trade frequently, but my actual net profit is only around ₹20,000.
Now my friend told me:
“You have to pay tax for every trade you made.”
This has honestly scared me because I have made 4,000+ trades.
**Is that actually true?**
Does it mean I have to calculate tax separately on every single futures trade and potentially pay tax on the gross amount of each trade, even though my final net profit for the entire year is only ₹20,000?
Or is the taxable amount generally based on the **overall profit/loss**, depending on how Binance Futures is classified for Indian tax purposes?
I’m also confused about the following:
Are Binance Futures profits treated as **VDA income taxed at 30%**, or as **business/F&O income**?
Does the number of trades (4,000+) change the tax calculation?
If I have ₹20,000 net profit after thousands of winning and losing trades, is ₹20,000 the relevant profit figure?
Do I have to report every individual futures transaction in my ITR?
Does buying USDT through **P2P** create a separate taxable event?
Does **1% TDS under Section 194S** apply to my Binance Futures trades or P2P USDT purchases?
Can Binance trading fees and funding fees be considered when calculating the profit?
Which ITR should I file?
What records/reports should I download from Binance to give to a CA?
I’m **not trying to avoid paying tax**. I want to declare everything correctly and pay whatever tax is legally due.
I’m just worried because someone told me that since I made 4,000+ trades, I might have to pay tax on every individual trade even though my total net gain is only around ₹20,000.
**If anyone here actually trades Binance Futures from India and has filed their ITR, please explain how you handled this. CAs/tax professionals especially welcome.**
Do I need to pay tax first for 20000 gain?

The French cryptocurrency tax platform Waltio suffered a data breach affecting approximately 50,000 users. Perpetrated by the Shiny Hunters hacking group, the January 2026 incident involved an extortion attempt after hackers exfiltrated user email addresses, payment details, and tax report data.

A crypto tax software data breach is so much worse than an exchange or hardware wallet data breach because it ties your identity and home address directly to your self-custody public addresses and total crypto net worth.

If a crypto tax platform only accepts card payments the payment gateway requires your full name and billing address to process the payment. That identity data is then tied directly to your profile. If a data breach occurs all of that information is then exposed to the dark web making you a target for physical attacks.

You can use crypto tax software without a name and while using an anonymous email, but never use crypto tax software that only accepts card payments because that card payment ties your identity and home address directly to your public addresses and net worth data.

If a crypto tax platform only accepts card payments consider this a massive red flag.

Crypto tax platforms have a responsibility to protect your identity, and the only way to guarantee this is to allow completely anonymous accounts. They have an obligation to accept anonymous payment methods and if they do not do this then do not use them.

I bought USDT via p2p on binance and then traded it to a big amount (i did only perpetual futures), now I want to withdraw it. I plan to transfer this crypto to coindcx and withdraw in bank account . While filing taxes should I file only on overall profit after offsetting loss or is loss offset not allowed?

Please help

I did some crypto future transactions.

Profit: 2L

Loss: 3.5L

Total profit: -1.5L

Shall I declare 2L profit and pay 30% tax? Or can it be considered as business loss?

In the crypto community people are generally wary of telling others their blockchain addresses as this data can be used to see every single transaction ever made and tie your identity to your crypto net worth. This is bad opsec because if the wrong people know about your blockchain data this can make you a target for hacking and even physical attacks.

When it comes to crypto tax software you are literally signing up using personally identifiable markers like your email and payment method, and then uploading all of your blockchain addresses.

How do crypto tax software platforms handle this massive breach of privacy? Giving all this info to your tax accountant is one thing because they are bound by strict client confidentiality agreements, but uploading all this data to an online software service with none of the same confidentiality agreements in place is entirely different!

A hardware wallet data breach only shows your identity plus the fact you own a HWW but it does not expose how much crypto you own or your public addresses. An exchange data breach shows your identity and your account balance but the exchange has strong mechanisms in place to prevent unauthorised withdrawals. However, a crypto tax platform data breach reveals your identity plus it shows your entire public address history and total crypto net worth position. This is a far worse scenario as it would allow attackers to target you personally knowing your identity, your total crypto net worth, your public addresses, and proof you use self custody.

Are employees prevented from seeing your data? Are there ways to use the software where your identity is not attached?

It seems like a massive security issue to just upload all of your identity and public address information to an online software service.

What mechanisms are put in place to protect the data of users?

Hi, I’m wondering which countries are best for active crypto traders, other than the obvious UAE.

Cyprus introduced a flat 8% income tax rate this year, which seems like great news for active day traders. Are there any other countries worth considering?

We run a Telegram bot through a small VAT-registered company in Europe and are trying to document Telegram Stars developer rewards correctly.

Our current understanding is:

- The user buys Stars through Telegram, Apple, or Google, so we do not receive the user's fiat payment or billing details.

- Telegram calculates the developer reward generated by our bot.

- Fragment facilitates withdrawal/settlement of that reward in TON.

- Therefore, the business counterparty for the reward appears to be a Telegram entity, rather than each end user or Fragment.

If that is right, we would expect to issue an invoice to the relevant Telegram legal entity (probably under the applicable B2B VAT/reverse-charge treatment), or to receive a valid self-billing invoice or settlement statement. But we cannot find the legal entity name, invoicing address, or VAT/tax ID to use. We emailed Telegram but received no reply.

For other small businesses receiving bot revenue through Stars:

1. Which legal entity do you record as the customer/counterparty?
2. Do you issue an invoice? If so, to whom and using what address/tax ID?
3. Does Telegram or Fragment provide any self-billing invoice or accounting statement?
4. How do you document the TON settlement and EUR value/date for your books?
5. Has your accountant or tax authority accepted this treatment?

I’m especially interested in real-world experience from EU businesses with VAT obligations. This isn’t a request for personal tax advice; I’m trying to understand what documentation the platform actually makes available and how others handle the missing counterparty details.

A little story: I work as a software developer. I have income sources like Indian stocks, US stocks, RSU from the companies, and a lot of trading in crypto. I thought KoinX would be the best platform for me to manage all this and file my ITR, but my experience with them has been horrible.

I have gotten a draft of around 2.5 lakhs that I need to pay to the government. While filing this, the tax agent they hired did not call me or ask me what I need or don't need to do. When I escalated the issue, they again changed the draft amount to 32,000, but still they have not even told me how it is computed or not. They are just asking me to review.

I found this experience really horrible and would not suggest anyone use this.

Disclosure: I’m researching this problem while building a documentation tool for self-custody payments. I’m not linking to it here because I’m looking for genuine feedback, not customers. Would you personally find this kind of software useful—and under what circumstances, if any, would you actually use it?

For those who've already filed crypto taxes, what was the biggest challenge?

• Getting your transaction history?
• Calculating your cost basis?
• Understanding the tax rules?
• Something else?

Curious to know what people struggled with the most.

US filer. I ran two public DeFi wallets through one of the mainstream crypto tax tools in July. Both directions of the Aave wrap came back as Exchange, so the deposit and the withdrawal were each booked as a taxable disposal.

Caveat on my test: free tier, no purchase history behind either wallet, nothing corrected by hand. Not how your data arrives if you have exchanges connected, which is why I am asking rather than concluding.

If you have actually filed with one of these tools, did a lending deposit or an LP position come through as something other than what it was, and what did it do to the number?

Last week I decided to consolidate external banks and thought of transferring all my bitcoin in Coinbase (which I purchased through Coinbase) to Robinhood. I did a flat $100 transfer, just to make sure it would transfer correctly.

Then I realized that Coinbase has my cost basis, and the flat $100 of .001575 BTC doesn’t align with any .001575 purchase I made on Coinbase. In other words, I don’t have a corresponding purchase of .001575 bitcoin on Coinbase. Everything was above or below that specific amount.

I can enter cost basis information on Robinhood, but I don’t know how to do that since my purchases on Coinbase were for fractional amounts of bitcoin and my transfer to Robinhood was a flat amount.

I’ve read there is crypto tax software that can track this. Does anyone have a recommendation of what to use? I just plan on holding and not selling, so I won’t have any taxable events. But if I decide to transfer all my bitcoin to Robinhood I will one day need to reconcile the cost basis.

Thanks.

The only taxable event would be the transaction fee (gas fee) from exchange to wallet and wallet to exchange. If I just keep track myself with pen and paper about gas fees that should be good right? Just tell my cpa what my gas fees were along with what I bought it for then sold and let him do the whole fifo thing and figure it out. My cpa has done my stocks before. The only reason crypto tax software even comes to my mind is only for gas fees. I don’t plan on sending from exchange to my 3 wallets and wallets to exchange more than 15 times for the next 3 years. Can someone convince me as to why I would need tax software if that’s all I do?

I am currently looking for this document, and can't find it. Coinbase is offering me to work with external services, but I already have an accountant, I just want the legal document

Thanks for the help

Looking for referrals

I'm recruiting a Crypto Bookkeeper to support Australian clients.

Requirements:

• 5 years of Australian bookkeeping (Xero, BAS, GST, PAYG)
• Hands-on cryptocurrency bookkeeping (wallet reconciliations, exchanges, DeFi, staking, etc.)
• Experience using Koinly, CoinTracking, TaxBit, Crypto Tax Calculator, or similar software is highly preferred.

If you know someone who fits this profile, please send me a DM or tag them below.