[cableshaft]

This is a really clever idea, but as someone who's trying to stay as legal as I can with reporting my crypto transactions for taxes, this sounds like it could potentially be a nightmare to report (or possibly to pay taxes on), especially with the recent GOP addition to the tax reform law that made every cryptocurrency transaction, even a trade from currency to currency, a taxable event.

I really wish I could just freely use this as a tool for investment, but the laws seem pretty draconian right now, and not reflective of the open and experimental nature of this space.

Once you get this up and going, consider some reporting tools to help keep track of the transactions, so people can use it for both personal and legal purposes.

[haggenballs]

We keep a log of transaction records. We can easily add a feature for users to export this as a CSV. Better yet in the future, I'd love to work with a user who is knowledgeable about this process to build a reporting feature.

[Osiris]

I've found that IRS requirement is really difficult to comply with. Does anyone have any tips for tracking trades?

[kawfey]

Trading is taxed just like capital gains, and mining as income. For small investments with few trades, it's straightforward and you can likely use a free service. Beyond a certain threshold (like 200 trades), it's probably worth using something like https://bitcoin.tax/ or https://cointracking.info/ which will create your forms for you after you import (and painstakingly correct) trades, at a rather steep price ($120/mo) though cointracking has a lifetime buy for $380...

[redblacktree]

Is mining income taxed before conversion to USD? What price would you be expected to use?

[amdavidson]

I own no cryptocurrencies, and I have no idea why it is any more challenging to track than trading stocks, you buy at one price and sell at another.

What am I missing?

[dbmnt]

One big factor: traditional brokerage/investment accounts provide records of all stock transactions, including the cost basis and precise gain or loss. This typically comes via the 1099-B. It's straightforward to report and file taxes in this manner (relatively speaking).

Even the more legitimate exchanges in the US (ex: Coinbase) aren't currently providing these types of records. You may be able to export a list of trades, but often cost basis is missing. Or if, for example, you've moved coins through various exchanges, or traded one coin for another coin (say BTC to ETH), before converting back to fiat currency, it's very difficult to figure out how to report everything. There's no 1099-B.