Ledger Live has recently gained support for staking Eth via Lido.
While it can be considered a nice feature (10% fee aside), the mechanism for staking sets you up to be liable for capital gains tax.
When staking with Lido, they give you an equivalent token called stETH in exchange for your ETH getting locked into a smart contract. The problem is, depending on your country’s tax rules, this counts as a crypto-to-crypto swap which is taxable, as ETH ≠ stETH.
For example, if you bought $10,000 of ETH at the start of the year, it would now be worth $35,000. That’s a gain of $25,000 which you potentially owe tax on now. Not to mention that when you finally unstake your ETH by trading in your stETH, that will be yet another capital event.
Just something to be cautious of, especially if you were planning on holding long term, this is a great way to get caught with your pants down at tax time.
Example countries where it’s taxable:
As an additional thing to keep an eye out for, coins and tokens transferred on different chains technically also count as disposals. ETH on Ethereum is not the same coin as ETH on BSC, for example.
But let’s not go there.
No comments:
Post a Comment