This issue of lots and being taxed as property:
>For example, say that someone sold bitcoins at $22,000 each in December 2020 and had coins bought 2016 for $600 and 2017 for $16,000. Selling the 2016 coins would mean a taxable gain of $21,400 each, while selling the 2017 coins would mean a gain of $6,000 each—a big difference.
This is not like a currency, where if I had a stack of Euros from an old holiday and then exchanged them for USD or even bought something with them, there is no concept of "lot" price in a currency. This US law definition appears to in effect destroy the fungibility property of cryptocurrencies by pinning the non-fungible identity of the coin to its spot price at the time of transaction. If US law doesn't treat it as currency, it's basically not currency.
I sat on the sidelines on cryptocurrency from the beginning because of specific scenarios like this because of these very inevitable problems. What they really are is an exotic asset for getting portfolio exposure to the trillions of dollars in black and grey market economic activity and associated volatility properties, but with only arms length participation. Basically a way to particpate in a distributed bank that launders money while turning a blind eye just like the real banks.
However, remote tech has changed work so much that if I were a betting man, I would be looking at real estate in non-extradition countries as thousands of new crypto millionaires weigh their options and just leave.