The IRS Wants to Know Whether You Bought Crypto

The Internal Revenue Service is asking taxpayers about digital assets more directly. According to a weekly rundown on the Ledger Cast podcast, the agency has added a new question about virtual currency to Form 1040, the standard individual income tax return, and has also published guidance on how crypto should be handled for tax purposes. Hosts Brian Krogsgard and Josh Olszewicz treated the change as the headline of an unusually crowded week.

Outside of taxes, the week was dominated by regulatory pressure. Several payment processors backed out of Facebook's Libra project, and concern about the currency continued to grow among regulators around the world. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was also scheduled to testify before Congress, a session the hosts flagged as one to watch. In the United States, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission stated that ether is a commodity, a classification that matters for how the asset is policed and which rules apply to it.

Securities regulators also made news. The Securities and Exchange Commission denied a Bitwise bitcoin exchange-traded fund application after it reached its final deadline. The hosts noted that the SEC's own report drew on Bitwise's data to make its case against the product.

Exchanges had a busy week too. Coinbase faced complaints about its mobile app, fees, and downtime, and the hosts pointed to a new charge of 1.25 percent on USDC holdings. Binance announced a 16 percent fee on stablecoin holdings and kept adding listings on Binance.US. The show also covered Bakkt, which reported around $5 million in trading volume in its first week. Volume remains low, but it is climbing, and the company plans to launch bitcoin options.

Legal and privacy news rounded out the episode. Bitfinex faces a lawsuit that alleges it manipulated markets through Tether's USDT. Privacy coins continued to be delisted from exchanges, and the Monero network has a hard fork scheduled for November 30. Separately, the widow of QuadrigaCX's late founder made a payment of about $9 million connected to the failed exchange.

For readers, the most practical item is the tax question. Anyone who has bought, sold, or traded digital assets should expect to answer it accurately when filing. The episode itself is educational material, not investment advice, and the hosts encouraged listeners to do their own research before buying anything.