When you buy, sell, trade, or earn crypto tax, the legal obligation to report cryptocurrency transactions to tax authorities. Also known as cryptocurrency taxation, it applies whether you traded Bitcoin for Ethereum, earned staking rewards, or sold tokens for cash. It’s not about whether you made a profit—it’s about whether you moved crypto at all. The IRS, CRA, and other tax agencies treat crypto like property, not currency. That means every trade triggers a taxable event, even if you didn’t touch fiat.
Most people don’t realize how often they trigger crypto capital gains, the profit or loss from selling or trading cryptocurrency that’s subject to tax. Swapping SOL for ETH? Taxable. Getting paid in USDC for freelance work? Taxable. Mining Bitcoin and selling it later? Taxable. And if you used an exchange like GroveX, a non-KYC crypto platform with minimal reporting or BloFin, a privacy-focused exchange with no user data sharing, you’re still responsible for tracking your own transactions. No KYC doesn’t mean no tax.
Where you live changes everything. In Canada, a country with strict crypto reporting rules enforced by the CRA, you must report every trade on Form T1135 and choose between capital gains or business income treatment. In Vietnam, under Directive 05/CT-TTg, a national crypto framework that bans stablecoins and forces exchanges to register, tax compliance is tied to government-approved platforms—most of which don’t exist yet. In Iran, where crypto outflows, the movement of cryptocurrency out of the country to preserve wealth from currency collapse hit $4.18 billion in 2024, tax rules are murky—but the state still monitors mining and trading for control, not revenue.
You can’t rely on exchanges to send you a 1099. Most platforms don’t track your full history, especially if you moved coins between wallets or used DeFi tools like Curve Finance or SushiSwap. That means you’re on your own to calculate cost basis, track gains, and document everything. Tools help, but they’re only as good as the data you feed them. Miss a trade? You could face penalties—even if you didn’t cash out.
What you’ll find below isn’t theory. It’s real-world breakdowns of how crypto tax plays out in different countries, on different platforms, and under different rules. From how the CRA treats staking rewards to why using a non-KYC exchange doesn’t make you invisible to the IRS, these posts show you what actually matters. No fluff. No guesswork. Just what you need to stay compliant—or at least know the risks.
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