[jniedrauer]

> Yes, it is quite easy to pay taxes on crypto

I only ever played with small amounts for fun, and in the long term, I took losses. But it's very difficult for me to compile all my trades for tax reasons. I set up automated trading on half a dozen different exchanges (some of which no longer exist) using half-baked python scripts with no logs. How on earth do I compile a Form 8453 showing all of those thousands of trades? I could spend months tracking down all the public keys I used and use blockchain explorers to compile a list of transactions... but I would not describe this as easy

[xur17]

I agree with this. Normal trading on exchanges might be relatively easy since you can just export transactions and dump them into a tool like this, but it can get a lot more complicated than that.

Some examples of things that are complicated:

- Trading ERC721 tokens (there are no tools to track down these transactions, track cost basis, etc - I ended up spending days hand crafting scripts to retrieve this data)

- Opening a cdp on something like Makerdao (which parts of this are taxable events / how do I file it?)

- What counts as a wash sale? [0]

- What are allowable methods of tracking cost basis?

- How do I handle hard forks?

Some of these are partially answered, but none of it is clear at all.

[0] https://help.cointracker.io/taxes/us-taxes/do-wash-sales-app...

[ceejayoz]

> How on earth do I compile a Form 8453 showing all of those thousands of trades?

By planning to do so from the beginning. "I forgot to keep records" isn't going to be something the IRS really cares to hear.

[jniedrauer]

Yes, hindsight is 20/20. In my case, I doubt they'll care, given the small amount and the fact that there were no taxable profits. But I have to imagine that I'm not the only one who did this.

[seibelj]

I'm sorry you decided to conduct algorithmic trading of digital assets on multiple exchanges without ever considering taxes. But services such as those linked by the OP (and others like bitcoin.tax) automatically import trades from all major exchanges and calculate the most advantageous method to minimize taxes.

[Buge]

I was doing various cryptocurrency mining in 2011 and trading in 2012, long before bitcoin.tax existed. Many of the exchanges I used have since shut down.

[scottlocklin]

> How on earth do I compile a Form 8453 showing all of those thousands of trades?

Just use bitcoin.tax to keep track of it like everyone else does. Or presumably OP's new tool.