Recently, I’ve been watching new people around me chase memes and follow celebrity coin-picks—taking screenshots of their profits every day. Saying I’m not jealous is a lie… but when it comes to filing at the end of the year, those screenshots are useless. And the more trades there are, the more my head hurts.

My current, simple “dumb” method is: every time I handle deposits and withdrawals, swap coins, or interact on-chain, I jot down a line with the txid, the time, the amount, and the corresponding wallet. On top of that, I back up three copies of the raw CSV exported by the exchange (cloud drive + local + email)—don’t keep only “a summary of earnings.” The contract side is even more of a headache: for things like approvals, airdrops, and cross-chain activity, write out clearly what you were actually doing at the time, or a few months later you won’t be able to remember it yourself. Old-timers say don’t be the one who takes the last baton, and I’ll add one more thing: don’t wait until tax season to reconcile your records—you really will go crazy.