Yes, which injects additional complications into the mix. Suppose you paid your tax (in cash) on the ETH reward you happened to receive. However, you don't sell the ETH reward for the time being.

If ETH rises and you sell, do you still pay tax on the gains?

If ETH falls and you sell, do you get to deduct the loss?

Another way to put it, are ETH staking rewards like positions in a regular IRA or a Roth IRA?

I'm not aware of IRS guidance on this, but it seems pretty basic and essential for next year's taxes.

That was one perfectly fine possibility (the one that arguably made more sense). Unfortunately, the IRS finally released the rules it decided to make up. According to these, you must pay tax at the "fair market value" of the rewards at the time you gain control of them (i.e., are able to sell).

In retrospect, this makes sense in terms for slowing down crypto adoption: If you stake, you're forced to go into cash at some point. No longer can you transact purely in crypto. In terms of maximizing the IRS's gains, it makes less sense, at least if you expect crypto to behave the same ways as since the beginning in 2009.

Just to be clear, I'm "happy" to pay my fair shares of taxes, provided the rules are clear and sensible. The problem is that while staking rewards were being earned, the IRS issued no guidance on how to treat them for tax purposes. When the guidance finally came, it was too late to do anything, such as selling the rewards for USD in order to pay the taxes in USD. You had to sell at whatever market prices came much later, unless you drew upon your own cash from other sources.

If you paid staking taxes in 2022, good luck straightening things out with the IRS. For 2023, Coinbase issued a 1099-MISC form with staking income that's reported to the IRS and that you need to use to pay those taxes from 2022 and before. The IRS will go by that form, not by your calculations (which had to be pretty much guesswork, given the lack of IRS guidance at the time).

Indeed, this seems to be the case. If Coinbase issues a 1099-MISC form "earned" money in US dollars, who am I to argue (or even if I have any means at all to do so)? That's despite the gains not being realized in any way, shape, or form.

Could you go absolutely broke this way? Say, ETH is pumped up one instant to $1B and you get your 0.1% staking reward to the tune of $10M USD. Lucky you!

Except ETH craps down back to its usual pricing of $3K or so. Nonetheless, you gained $10M in terms of IRS taxable income. Just for that one instant.

So you better have a real good checking account of $3M or so in order to give the government what it rightfully deserves from you. Right?

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this particularly nasty surprise from the IRS and Coinbase:

Long story short, Coinbase is reporting ALL staking income to the IRS, from way back when ETH staking went online in 2020. It's not just for 2023 or since April 2023, when you could first unlock and sell your ETH staking rewards.

Needless to say, that's going to be a hefty extra tax bill for those who staked since the start. Even worse, you get hit whether or not you sell your ETH rewards for US dollars. As I gather, Coinbase is basically using the ETH prices of April 2023 to decide the US dollar amount to report to the IRS (on form 1099-MISC).

This is the first time you need to pay tax in US dollars for staking rewards that were never sold and remain as ETH.

Can anyone confirm or disprove this? I hope I'm wrong, but somehow it doesn't seem so.

That depends on where you wind up going. Heaven is where you can still use your bitcoin and transaction times are instantaneous. Hell is where they take only fiat.

I don't really expect anything back, but there's the official and formal claims system that seems to be functioning. It's just that the "decisions" on what to return to investors haven't been made yet, 3 or 4 years after the debacle. Maybe we'll still get some pennies on the dollar or satoshis on the bitcoin, at least.

Anyone else here still waiting to see what happens with their MtGox claim? I filed via the Kraken option and check every now and then, but it's been years and apparently they're still investigating. All I get is the occasional email about some proceedings within the Toyoyama or Fukushima Prefecture Court or something and Mr. Watanabe or Mr. Fujimoro or someone else with a Japanese name meeting to discuss something or other of no apparent relevance to the question of whether any money is coming.

Given that BTC is worth just a "little" more now, I'm just starting to wonder about the prospects again, even though I had written this off years ago. Anyone got any ideas as to the chances of getting back anything?

Behind bitcoin there's more than the network and the system. Behind bitcoin there's an idea -- and ideas are indestructible.

Buy till it hurts, then level up your threshold of pain. Repeat.

Only 21 million available for all the billions of people of the world. If you even have 1, you're already way into elite status.

Actually, both ETH and ETC "soared" since the fork, and by comparable amounts. As I recall, ETC started out at something like $0.70 when ETH was around $10. Currently we have ETC at $14 and ETH at $200, so that would be a factor of 20 for both.

ETC has always been priced an order of magnitude lower than ETH, but their relative price appreciation has been comparable. ETC rode the same rocket upwards.

Thus, I'm still wondering about BTC and BCC in this context. What will happen to potentially valuable coins that Coinbase won't give to users, yet won't grab for itself, either?

That's what confuses me: Coinbase insists that they will NOT keep your BCC for themselves. As such, what will happen to it?

Coinbase also claims that they may change their position on BCC, depending on how the market evolves. Thus, if BCC rises significantly, I'm also wondering whether they will wind up paying BTC holders the BCC that was due them. Will this even be doable?

(BTW, it's not entirely trivial to move BTC off of Coinbase at this point: Between the "delays" they're reporting with BTC withdrawals, other exchanges not supporting my location, and the hassle of setting up private wallets, I don't trust in my Coinbase BTC getting to me in time, or even at all.)

But is that how it works? I thought it cost Coinbase nothing to give away the ETC, since the fork basically converted every ETH coin into one ETH and one ETC. The ETC was created out of nothing and was completely free (aside from the extra work Coinbase had to do to enable ETC payouts).

Similarly, the bitcoin fork will convert each BTC into one BTC and one BCC. Coinbase claims that they won't keep the BCC, so what happens to it?

The thing is, ETC stayed under $1 for a good long while, then rocketed up to $20 and beyond for no apparent reason. Most players had expected it simply to fade and go away, it would seem, but it's still going relatively strong. Who's to say that BCC won't follow a similar path? Indeed, maybe BCC will confound all expectations and become the dominant coin.

In this entire space, who's to say (correctly)? Naysayers will say "nay" and pundits will pund, but in the end, no one knows what to expect at this point.

When the ethereum fork happened, Coinbase credited their customers with an amount of ETC equal to their ETH held at the time. ETC was under $1 then, but got to over $20 and now sits at around $14. That makes it nontrivial money given to you for nothing. If you had, say, 100 ETH, you'd have around $1400 worth of ETC right about now.

When the bitcoin fork happens, is something like this likely to happen as well? Could BCC similarly appreciate in price?

I don't have a crystal ball, but shouldn't everybody and his uncle be making sure they get whatever BCC is due them?

Moreover, I just don't quite get Coinbase vs. Kraken on this. Coinbase says that they will give you no BCC, while Kraken will give you your BCC. What's wrong with this picture? If BCC appreciates like ETC, won't people be shooting themselves over having missed the chance to get their free BCC that was due them?

How does this compare to the ethereum fork a while back? Coinbase credited me with ETC for the ETH I was holding at the time, so I wound up with both. While the ETC initially was worth peanuts, its recent rise made it worth something. It was free money for nothing.

Am I correct in understanding that if I keep BTC at Coinbase, I'll get no BCC (since they said they won't support it)? And if I move the BTC to my own wallet (or potentially another exchange), I will get the BCC?

Somehow this seems wrong. Just by moving the BTC to my own wallet, I can get BCC as free money that may be potentially worth a great deal, as with ETC?

When $100 invested in 2009 grows into $80 million in 2017, is that a bubble? Maybe a tiny bubble.

Certainly, this was done through Coinbase. They don't support ETC, but for ETH purchasers, they offered the option to send any incoming ETC to an external address. I sent to a Bittrex wallet.

The IRS has never liked the idea of something for nothing, but in this case, that's exactly what it was. Given ETC's recent price appreciation, there's more of the something from nothing each day.

Long story short, if you have some of the "free" ETC from the ETH/ETC fork a while back, what should the IRS cost basis be?

Long story long, I lucked out in receiving some of that ETC due to buying ETH during a particular time window. (I'm actually still not sure how one could get something for nothing like this, but I'll happily accept whatever the system wants to give me.) Due to the recent ETC price appreciation, this is now starting to be worth something, and I'm considering cashing out. However, I've no idea about the tax treatment of the proceeds, whether it be the cost basis or the nature of the gains (regular income, capital gain, or whatnot). Moreover, given that both H&R Block and the IRS looked at me like I grew a third head in simpler matters, I hesitate even to bother to consult with them.

Thanks for any suggestions.

A new crypto-coin. How exciting.