Unsplash

Sigh... I really need to be much more disciplined with the crypto accounting not that I'm in a country with a capital gains taxation system for cryptocurrencies. It really makes everything quite a great deal more onerous for reporting income and gains (and the inverses!) for taxation purposes. I have no issues with the idea of taxation in principle, it is the best way that we have to redistribute wealth in the effort to fund public goods... of course, like any system, it is not ideal or perfect, and the existence of people tends to crap things up with what might be best described as corruption if it happened in a developing country... in a first world country, I think it is just called waste... or inefficiency?

Anyway, keeping track of every single bloody transaction... be it sale, airdrop or otherwise is quite a pain in the arse when you are spread over several platforms and blockchains... I use Cointracking for tracking purposes... it has its little quirks and there are some things that it does fine and others that are much less good... but there are pretty much no single tracking/accounting solution that manages to do everything well. That is further complicated by the fact that there is really no standard for API and CSV exports, plus exchanges keep changing up their exports... and this doesn't even get started on the problem of on-chain information and the various different dApps that exist there.

This means that, despite some degree of automation, there are always things that slip through the cracks and will need manual intervention. And there are many things that will just plain need to be done by hand.

Today, I finally had some time to look over how some of the automated imports were going... and to my dismay, the Huobi API had stalled about two months ago! I had already known that it didn't import drops from newlist and Primelist... or interest income either. So, pretty much only transactions from sales and incoming/outcoming deposits and withdrawals. It isn't great, but at least it was something...

... so, a couple of months of data to import... sigh. I was going to try a CSV import... but I decided to just try running the API call again. Surprisingly enough, it worked! However, it was still throwing up an error... but it did weirdly import all the trades, deposits, and withdrawals! Strange... well, that meant I only needed to import the various manual ones from newlist and Primelist. No big deal...

... except, I really need to be much better and organised about having some time each week to do some manual imports. It sucks, but it doesn't get better the larger the pile gets... I'm already dreading the Binance CSV import... for some reason, the API import is borked for me, and neither side was able to find the reason despite Cointracking spending several weeks with me trying to pin down the problem.

Now, the problem isn't really the actual import... but it is just the going over to just check that nothing funny is going on. I probably don't really have to do that... but there have been some quirky things going on sometimes with different exchanges... and it is best to catch these problems in an isolated import into a test account rather than trying to wade through lots and lots and lots of transactions and entries to figure out why numbers aren't lining up.

So, I'm hopeful that there has been talk in Australia about streamlining the reporting process... at the moment, it is really best described as onerous... and it is even more so when dealing wiht crypto isn't your full-time job. There has been talk of people just printing out the full volume of yearly transactions (which can easily get up into the hundreds of thousands!) and just dumping it all on the Australian Tax Office.... just to show exactly HOW onerous the entire process is!

Honestly, I just can't wait for things to change... this is really stupid, and it is a system of reporting that was designed for when things moved much slower... and you had an accounting division in your investing company. These days, investing can be a retail affair and done by individuals... and the speed and volume of transactions in the true digital age is many orders of magnitude more than the sluggish current legacy system.

If they don't change for us, they will have to change when the big boys start playing around... or when the infrastructure gets upgraded to be truly digitally settled.

I can also be found cross-posting at:
Hive
Steem
Publish0x

Handy Crypto Tools

Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
FTX: Regulated US-based exchange with some pretty interesting and useful discounts on trading and withdrawal fees for FTT holders. Decent fiat on-ramp as well!
MXC: Listings of lots of interesting tokens that are usually only available on DEXs. Avoid high gas prices!
Huobi: One of the largest exchanges in the world, some very interesting listings and early access sales through Primelist.
Gate.io: If you are after some of the weirdest and strangest tokens, this is one of the easiest off-chain places to get them!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
Poloniex: One of the older regulated exchanges that has come into new ownership. I used to use it quite a lot, but have since stopped.
Bitfinex: Ahhh... another oldie, but a goodie exchange. Most noted for the close affiliation with USDT and the Basic "no-KYC" tier!