Crypto Tax Glossary: Terms for Beginners

Many crypto investors don't know much about reporting and filing taxes. On the other hand, many accountants don't know much about trading crypto. This means that sometimes important information gets lost in translation.

To prevent confusion and to introduce beginners to the world of crypto tax, we're constantly updating our crypto tax terms glossary. This list covers many common terms that may be unfamiliar to novices in crypto tax.

Want to learn more about filing taxes on digital assets? Check out our crypto tax guide.

501(c)(3): An organization recognized by the IRS as being a non-profit or charitable organization. Donations to 501(c)(3) organizations may be tax deductible. 

Airdrop: The mass distribution of tokens to many wallets, often as a reward or incentive. Airdrops may require a recipient’s consent or may be directly deposited into their wallet. They have increasingly been used in phishing schemes. 

Altcoin: A token other than Bitcoin.

Audit trail: A detailed record that sequentially tracks how an asset has been transferred or traded.

Average cost basis: The accounting method used in the UK, Canada, and some other nations.

Bear market: when prices are falling across crypto.

Bull market: when prices are rising across crypto.

Carryforward: Using tax losses from prior years to offset capital gains from the current tax year.

Capital gain: Earnings made from the appreciation and subsequent sale or trade of an asset.

Centralized exchange (CEX): An organization that brokers sales and trades of tokens and is owned and governed by a known entity or entities. These must typically follow know-your-customer (KYC) rules and report to tax authorities. Examples: Coinbase, Gemini, Binance.

Cost basis: The amount a trader paid for an asset, plus additions for any applicable fees.  

Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO): An organization (social or commercial) governed by rules encoded in smart contracts stored on the blockchain rather than by any centralized leadership. Examples: Uniswap, MakerDAO, FWB, Radicle.

Decentralized finance (DeFi): A broad umbrella term for financial instruments (exchanges, brokerages, etc.) made directly accessible to investors via smart contracts on a blockchain. DeFi aims to increase access to investment opportunities by bypassing traditional third-party intermediaries.

Disposal: Accounting term for relinquishing control over an asset through a sale, swap, trade, or some other mechanism.

Estimated taxes: A payment of a portion of your expected total tax liability, these are due four times a year from people who expect to make a significant amount of income through self-employment.

Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR): If you, at any point in the year, had more than $10,000 in one or more foreign accounts, you need to submit this form to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). It is not clear whether foreign crypto exchange accounts must be reported; we recommend speaking to your tax advisor. 

Fiat: Government-issued currency not backed by any commodity. Examples: USD, CAD, EUR, JPY.

First-in-first-out (FIFO): A form of specific ID accounting in which the first tax lots acquired are the first sold.

Gas fee: A transaction fee paid to the Ethereum network’s miners. Gas fees can sometimes be added to an asset’s cost basis.

Hard fork: Occurs when a community decides to make a fundamental change in a blockchain that results in its new blocks no longer being backward-compatible with its old blocks. This creates a new branch of the chain and a corresponding new token. 

Highest-in-first-out (HIFO): A form of specific ID accounting in which the highest cost tax lots acquired are the first sold.

Holding period: The amount of time an investor keeps an asset after acquiring it and before trading or selling it.

Form 1040: The IRS form used to report individual income tax, an individual tax “return."

Form 1099: An IRS form used to report income or earnings made from something other than wages, salaries, or tips. Payers (exchanges, brokerages, etc.) send a copy of a Form 1099 to both the IRS and the payee (individual trader). There are more than 20 types of Form 1099, but the most common in cryptocurrency include 1099-MISC, 1099-K, and 1099-B. 

Form 8949: The IRS form that aggregates capital gains and losses as reported on Forms 1099-B or 1099-S. The v total is then carried over to the Schedule D and then the Form 1040.

Last-in-first-out (LIFO): A form of specific ID accounting in which the last tax lots acquired are the first sold.

Long-term gain: A long-term gain (or loss) is one realized when the sold capital asset’s holding period was one year or more. Long-term gains receive preferable tax treatment for individual taxpayers.

Meme coin: a crypto token associated with a popular meme, like Dogecoin.

Mining: The process of verifying and adding new transactions to a proof-of-work blockchain such as Bitcoin. Crypto miners are rewarded for their computational power with newly minted tokens. Mined tokens are taxed as ordinary income. 

Minting: Creating a new token on a blockchain.

Non-fungible token (NFT): A file minted to a blockchain whose unique metadata makes it one-of-a-kind and unable to be subdivided or copied.

Ordinary income: Income earned through salaries, wages, or payment for a good or service.

Play-to-earn (P2E) games: NFT-based games through which players can earn, buy, and sell crypto assets that often have “real world” value. Examples: Axie Infinity, Cryptokitties, Gods Unchained.

Proceeds: The total amount received from the sale or trade of an asset. 

Profit and loss (PnL): The change in value of a trader’s position. In crypto margin trading, PnLs can be realized or unrealized. Open positions have unrealized PnL and closed positions have realized PnLs.

Realizing a gain or loss: Locking in a gain or loss on an asset by selling, swapping, or trading it.

Rug pull: A type of crypto scam in which investors are left with worthless tokens after the project’s creators limit users’ access to tokens and/or quickly sell off their holdings in the project. Examples: Thodex, Meerkat Finance, $SQUID.

Safe harbor rule: If you pay quarterly estimated taxes and make payments that fall within a certain range, you have made “safe harbor” and will not be penalized for underpayment should your actual total tax liability exceed your estimated payments. The safe harbor threshold varies based on whether you make more or less than $150,000.

Security: A tradable financial instrument recognized by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Currently, crypto assets are not officially considered securities.  

Schedule C: An IRS form that is part of Form 1040 and is used to report business earnings from a sole proprietorship.

Schedule D: An IRS form attached to Form 1040 that is used to report capital gains and losses. 

Sh-tcoin: An altcoin that has lost most or all value; often one that capitalized on a meme for short-term gain.

Smart contract: A computer program on the blockchain that executes specific actions when certain conditions are met, as laid out in a previously agreed upon digital contract. 

Specific ID: A method of inventory valuation that tracks individual inventory items rather than group them together, which can reduce capital gains taxes in a given year.

Short-term gain: A short-term gain (or loss) is one realized when the sold capital asset’s holding period was a year or less. Short-term gains receive the ordinary income tax rate. 

Stablecoin: A token designed to be pegged to the value of another currency, token, or commodity, for instance the US dollar. Examples: DAI, USDT.

Staking: Depositing tokens into a proof-of-stake protocol in order to support its continued operation and receive staking rewards. 

Taxable event: Transaction that results in taxes owed to the government.

Tax loss harvesting: Strategically identifying unrealized losses that can be realized through sales or trades to offset capital gains. 

Tax lot: A set of tokens purchased or acquired in a specific transaction. 

Wash sale: Selling an asset at a loss and reacquiring the same asset within 30 days, prohibited by the IRS for securities. These superficial transactions allow traders to artificially increase their capital losses and minimize taxes. In the US, there is no specific crypto wash sale rule, tho we recommend conservative investors avoid them.

Wrapped token: A token pegged to the value of another token to allow a trader to use the original asset on a different blockchain. A wrapped token is signified with a W, ie- WBTC, WETH.