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Comment by Hydraulix989 | Hacker News Reader

Did anyone actually make money with crypto in 2018?

From a tax perspective, sure. If you bought any time before the fall of 2017, and sold any time in 2018, it's pretty easy to have realized a gain in 2018.

Many people sold BTC at $14k+ and then bought back in at 10k, 5k, etc. If they didn't sell again for all of 2018 they'd only have "realized gains" and no realized loses. So on paper they'd have only have gains, as the IRS doesn't recognize the market value of your current holdings.

Whether they bought back in doesn't make a difference. If you sell BTC, that's a taxable event.

Can't they do a wash sale to create losses? That's how tax loss harvesting works.

Not an expert, but afaik you'd have to separate the buyback by 1 month from the wash sale for it to be valid/legal. You'd be kicking yourself if the price skyrocketed during that window.

Edit: https://help.cointracker.io/taxes/us-taxes/do-wash-sales-app...

> There is some debate as to whether wash sales apply to cryptocurrency sales, however the IRS specifically states that wash sales only apply to stocks and securities. Since the IRS has also issued guidance that cryptocurrencies are property, CoinTracker does not calculate/apply wash sales.

Of course.

You can short established coins like BTC and ETH.

There are also so called "flip seasons" where you throw money at random small cap altcoins and flip them 30-200% higher over the course of a month. These happen whenever BTC settles down and consolidates before plunging to news lows.

>You can short established coins like BTC and ETH.

You can, but it's hard to find reputable vendors that offer this that aren't bucketshop scams.

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