Generally you only pay taxes if you are gaining money. If you started investing in crypto in december like I did, you would, by now, not have gained much. In fact you probably lost 50% of value if not trading heavily against the markets loosing massive ground.

Profits and losses would be compared and only for profits you pay taxes.

Obviously 2017 was so crazy that it was possibly harder to loose money, therefore profits were extremely high. Thats how it is though, your countries infrastructure is paid bytaxes, think about that.

I still do not get why this guy did not just pay his tax and wasted it all. Possibly a sign that it was (no offense) realy not too dificult to make profits last year. 😏