Remaining wallet & tx issues

Setting up your Wallets & Exchanges
#1

First, Chandan, in his post “How do I track my local/cold/hardware wallet? Why is it showing zero balance?” requested:
“If you have other coins in cold wallets which we do not yet support, please let us know which ones so we can prioritize adding local wallet support for those blockchains.”
Here is my list: STRAT DGB KMD ZEN DCR

Q: I assume that when I received free coins by Air Drop or Coinbase Earn, I should manually adjust the Cost Basis to “0,” if necessary? Does it matter if the stated grant from Coinbase was $10, but I received ~ $9.96?

Q: I have added the xPub addresses for two Bitcoin accounts–BTC 1 and BTC 2.If I go to Portfolio>Wallets, and check the balance for BTC 1, it matches (close enough) what Ledger says. But my BTC 2 balance reads “0.” Chandan also addressed this issue in the aforementioned post.

How do I know my address is correct? I copied and pasted the xPub address from BTC 2 Advanced Logs. I tried to do it again, to make sure. CoinTracker wouldn’t let me, because it had already been added.

Does it really have a non-zero balance? According to Ledger (and memory), it has a substantial balance. (I do not see how to check this with the BTC Explorer. I just don’t know how to use that.) Back to CoinTracker, if I open the Wallet, then the list of Transactions, they match what Ledger says. Moreover, each of those txs has in information icon. If I hover over that, I see the remaining balance, after that tx. Following all the way up to the last tx, I find there a substantial balance of BTC. So the Transaction list knows it’s there, but the Wallet balance does not! What can I do?

Q: Here’s the hard one: The Changelly .csv file I uploaded to CoinTracker shows a Total Fee of .25 for every tx, without naming the Unit used. (My records show a variety of amounts, but I’m never sure what’s accurate, what belongs to which leg of the tx, etc. The blockchain txs only give me a fee rate.) CoinTracker has interpreted all of these fees as .25 of the receiving coin. This makes no sense. In the case of .25 BTC, that yields a Fee of $2,xxx.xx! Yet this seems to not affect the Cost Basis at all! How should I edit these Changelly fees?

BTW, I’ve had to do considerable tx editing, when Changelly or ShapeShift was used, but I think I figured it out, except for the above.

Thanks for your help. I think I’m almost there!

2 Likes
#2

Hi @write_on,

Thanks for the questions and sorry about the hassle. Please see comments inline below.

Here is my list: STRAT DGB KMD ZEN DCR

Thanks! We will work on adding these. In the meantime you can still bulk upload these via CSV or via manual entry.

Q: I assume that when I received free coins by Air Drop or Coinbase Earn, I should manually adjust the Cost Basis to “0,” if necessary?

Only if the basis was truly zero. Otherwise the auto-detected basis should be right and you can mark these received transactions as "payment"s

Does it matter if the stated grant from Coinbase was $10, but I received ~ $9.96?

In this case it would be appropriate to edit the basis and set it to 9.96 (we are working on doing this automatically but you can do it manually for now.

Q: I have added the xPub addresses for two Bitcoin accounts–BTC 1 and BTC 2.If I go to Portfolio>Wallets, and check the balance for BTC 1, it matches (close enough) what Ledger says. But my BTC 2 balance reads “0.” Chandan also addressed this issue in the aforementioned post.

Update: we just pushed a fix for this — should be working now. Please let us know if not.

Q: Here’s the hard one: The Changelly .csv file I uploaded to CoinTracker shows a Total Fee of .25 for every tx, without naming the Unit used. (My records show a variety of amounts, but I’m never sure what’s accurate, what belongs to which leg of the tx, etc. The blockchain txs only give me a fee rate.) CoinTracker has interpreted all of these fees as .25 of the receiving coin. This makes no sense. In the case of .25 BTC, that yields a Fee of $2,xxx.xx! Yet this seems to not affect the Cost Basis at all! How should I edit these Changelly fees?

Unfortunately we have to assume if the information is incomplete. You can go into those transactions and edit them to put in the correct currency (or remove it altogether if you have no idea)

BTW, I’ve had to do considerable tx editing, when Changelly or ShapeShift was used, but I think I figured it out, except for the above.

Sorry about that. We are going to work on trying to make these more seamless integrations.

Thanks for your help. I think I’m almost there!

You bet! Thanks for sticking with it!

2 Likes
#3

Hi Chandan,

I’m adding responses inline, below.

#4

Hey @write_on,

Cases of airdrops/earned coins are a grey area in the eyes of the IRS. Based on the latest guidance, the most likely interpretation the IRS has is that airdropped/earned coins are like income. That means if you get $10 of XLM from Coinbase Earn, even if you pay nothing to get them, that would count as $10 of income and the basis of those coins would be $10.

If you knowingly choose that you don’t want to follow this approach and take a more aggressive stance that airdrops/earned coins are $0.00 basis, you can choose to do this at your own risk. To do so, you can edit the transactions and mark as 0.00 basis.

CoinTracker defaults to the more likely and more conservative approach of assigning the fair market value at the time received as income and the basis of the asset.

#5

Hi @write_on, Coinbase Earn transactions are not automatically detected and tagged as payments on an ongoing basis (and retroactively).

#6

Hi Chandan,

Thanks for this clarification. I
checked my transactions. I already have all my Coinbase Earn transactions manually marked as Payments. It looks as if
they were detected on Coinbase, as Receives, but I manually tagged them as Payments.

Here’s what I did with the rest
of the questions I had about that. Somehow, CoinTracker picked up from the Ethereum blockchain (?) three tokens I
didn’t even know I had: KICK, EBK, ETHS. I first manually edited the cost basis, as best as I could tell. I don’t think
I got any of them right. I know I used the wrong number for KICK, and the other two I finally left at 0. Then, I
learned somewhere on the IRS site that if I didn’t have access to or control over the coins/tokens, they don’t count as
income–until I can access them to dispose of them.

KICK somehow showed up in my LedgerLive ETH account. But, as I understand it, one must jump through a bunch of hoops,
and wait for a certain exchange to open in the future, before one can move or sell the tokens. Even Ledger no longer
shows a value associated with the tokens.

Since I can’t even find the other two on any wallet or exchange account that I have, I cannot access them, either. I
can see them on the blockchain, but have no clue how to access them. Besides, I believe the combined value of the two
is (or was) less than three cents.

I marked all three “Ignore.”

Then there is the question of BAT Rewards in my Brave Browser. According to the browser, this wallet is managed by
Uphold, but I do not directly have an account. These BAT tokens can only be used to tip content providers on the
browser. They cannot be moved, or spent on anything else. (I hear that, in the future, we will be able to use them to
buy merchandise from browser ads.) I also just learned that these tokens have unspecified expiration dates. At least, I
can’t find that information.

Since I can’t automatically connect or download the transactions, I cannot tell for sure which Rewards amounts were
received on what date, I have no way of knowing the cost basis, I don’t know when what expires, and I cannot move or
spend them, I am ignoring them completely.

I would imagine there are other
people out there who are wondering what to do with their BAT Rewards. I hope this helps–unless you want to correct me!

Thanks for everything,

write_on

P.S.: According to CoinMarketCap, EBK is currently worth .001869; KICK is worth .000009; and ETHS still doesn’t
exist.

#7

Hi @write_on,

Good questions. Please see comments inline below:

Hi Chandan,

Thanks for this clarification. I
checked my transactions. I already have all my Coinbase Earn transactions manually marked as Payments. It looks as if
they were detected on Coinbase, as Receives, but I manually tagged them as Payments.

Great sounds like this is already resolved for you then

Here’s what I did with the rest
of the questions I had about that. Somehow, CoinTracker picked up from the Ethereum blockchain (?) three tokens I
didn’t even know I had: KICK, EBK, ETHS.

These are airdrops (free marketing tokens that these projects likely sent you).

I first manually edited the cost basis, as best as I could tell. I don’t think
I got any of them right. I know I used the wrong number for KICK, and the other two I finally left at 0. Then, I
learned somewhere on the IRS site that if I didn’t have access to or control over the coins/tokens, they don’t count as
income–until I can access them to dispose of them.
KICK somehow showed up in my LedgerLive ETH account. But, as I understand it, one must jump through a bunch of hoops,
and wait for a certain exchange to open in the future, before one can move or sell the tokens. Even Ledger no longer
shows a value associated with the tokens.

Since I can’t even find the other two on any wallet or exchange account that I have, I cannot access them, either. I
can see them on the blockchain, but have no clue how to access them.

You can access them by connecting Ledger to a tool like MyCrypto.

Besides, I believe the combined value of the two
is (or was) less than three cents.

I marked all three “Ignore.”

According to the formal rules, you could also mark these as “Airdrop.” Given the small amount though, it won’t make a big difference.

Then there is the question of BAT Rewards in my Brave Browser. According to the browser, this wallet is managed by
Uphold, but I do not directly have an account. These BAT tokens can only be used to tip content providers on the
browser. They cannot be moved, or spent on anything else. (I hear that, in the future, we will be able to use them to
buy merchandise from browser ads.) I also just learned that these tokens have unspecified expiration dates. At least, I
can’t find that information.

Since I can’t automatically connect or download the transactions, I cannot tell for sure which Rewards amounts were
received on what date, I have no way of knowing the cost basis, I don’t know when what expires, and I cannot move or
spend them, I am ignoring them completely.

I would imagine there are other
people out there who are wondering what to do with their BAT Rewards. I hope this helps–unless you want to correct me!

If you create an Uphold account, you can trade the BAT for BTC, USD, etc. Otherwise, yes, they are held in Brave and just remain them to tip to other websites.

#8

Chandan,

Thanks for the tips about using MyCrypto and Uphold accounts. Not that I have time for that now, but it could come in handy in the future. I guess the Uphold account would let me see what I received on what day? Would it give me cost basis? Can I import either or both of those accounts to CoinTracker?

If I report the BAT Rewards as income, what happens when I use them to tip, or they expire (if I choose not to trade them out first, or don’t get around to it)?

Thanks again,

write_on

#9

Hi @write_on,

Thanks for the tips about using MyCrypto and Uphold accounts. Not that I have time for that now, but it could come in handy in the future. I guess the Uphold account would let me see what I received on what day? Would it give me cost basis? Can I import either or both of those accounts to CoinTracker?

Yes, you can add Uphold to CoinTracker and pull in the basis info. Note: the BAT earnings to Brave are not automatically captured, just the transactions after you receive the BAT such as converting to BTC, trading, selling, withdrawing, etc. The initial BAT receive still needs to be added manually.

If I report the BAT Rewards as income, what happens when I use them to tip, or they expire (if I choose not to trade them out first, or don’t get around to it)?

You’d want to separately, manually add the tipping transaction. Re: expiration, I believe only BAT grants can expire (not deposited or earned BAT rewards). You should be good here, but in the case they did expire, you would have the choice is ignoring the initial income or showing lost income depending on your risk tolerance (it’s a grey area).