Tax & Regulation
4 guides and tools on tax & regulation.
How tax authorities treat digital assets, what record-keeping actually requires, and the regulatory frameworks now taking shape.
Crypto Tax Basics: What Creates a Taxable Event
The single most expensive misconception in crypto tax is that nothing is taxable until you cash out to your bank account.…
Tax & RegulationHow Cryptocurrency Is Regulated
Crypto is not unregulated. It is regulated unevenly, differently in each jurisdiction, and often by rules written for something else.…
Tax & RegulationWhat Happens to Your Crypto When You Die
Assets nobody can access are assets that no longer exist. Crypto is the only common asset class where dying badly can destroy it entire…
Tax & RegulationKYC and AML in Crypto: What Happens to Your Data
Identity verification is a legal requirement rather than a commercial choice, and understanding what it is for explains most of what ex…
About this section
The most expensive misconception in cryptocurrency is that nothing is taxable until money reaches a bank account. In most jurisdictions, swapping one token for another is a disposal at market value, and the gain is taxable at that moment even though no conventional currency moved. People who traded actively through a rising market and then watched it fall have been left owing tax on gains that no longer exist.
Staking rewards and airdrops create a related trap. They are generally treated as income at the value when received, so tokens received at a high valuation and then falling ninety per cent leave a liability that exceeds what the holding is now worth — and a capital loss frequently cannot offset an income tax bill.
Regulation is arriving unevenly rather than not at all. The EU's MiCA framework now licenses service providers across the bloc and imposes reserve and redemption requirements on stablecoin issuers. Automatic reporting frameworks will see exchanges report holdings to tax authorities much as banks already do. Assuming transactions are invisible is no longer a viable position.
These guides cover what creates a taxable event, what records you need and why exchanges are an unreliable place to keep them, how the main regulatory approaches differ, and what happens to self-custodied assets when their owner dies. None of it is tax advice, and all of it varies by jurisdiction.