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It doesn't say "crypto" currency, it says "any virtual currency". So what do they mean by any virtual currency? ACH direct deposit? Starbucks gift cards? RuneSc
by castratikron 6y ago
It doesn't say "crypto" currency, it says "any virtual currency". So what do they mean by any virtual currency? ACH direct deposit? Starbucks gift cards? RuneScape gold? Virtual currency is just currency that isn't physical. Bitcoin was not the first virtual currency (nor the first decentralized currency).
They should just remind everyone that cryptocurrency counts as income. No need for a question that has an ambiguous answer. This is going to confuse a lot of people.
- bastawhiz 6y agoACH direct deposit is absolutely not a currency in any sense of the concept. It's a vehicle for USD—direct deposit has no value, it's a transaction. Gift cards can maybe be considered a form of currency, but they're hardly able to be treated as one since you can redeem them in exactly one way, and the issuer needs to count them as a liability in the currency they were issued in (mining a bitcoin doesn't create debt on Satoshi's corporate ledger). You can argue the semantics all day, but nobody is buying up and trading millions of dollars in Starbucks gift cards. Arguing that these rules are for any purpose other than cryptocurrency is wild. The IRS doesn't create rules for things that aren't a material concern, and cryptocurrency is the only recent "virtual currency" that is a material concern.