Dying laughing—every year around this time, a whole bunch of people run over to ask me, “How do I keep records?” “How do I file my taxes?” I tell them: you guys are so smooth with on-chain operations—every interaction’s gas is so brutal it feels like it’s free. So why, when it comes to filling out spreadsheets, do you end up just slapping it together in Excel, and then at year-end you open everything to “unknown token” + “nameless address”? Hurry up and find an on-chain tax tool. No shame in that.

Also, recently a few friends around me have been saying that hardware wallets are out of stock—like there’s been some “security awareness awakening,” and people started hoarding them. I’m like: are you planning to pass that wallet down as a family heirloom? The most dangerous thing, though, is that pile of phishing links you’ve got in your hands—the moment you click one, it’s even more satisfying than when I was shorting. And don’t be too blindly trusting of cold wallets; first learn to read the full address name.

Anyway, my own approach is: for every transaction, I add a tag myself and archive it by week. So when it’s tax time at the end of the year, don’t come to me asking me to copy my homework. I don’t even want to help you calculate your whole stack of dog coins. The key isn’t having perfect bookkeeping—it’s keeping enough evidence so tax authorities can’t zero in on you when you can’t produce anything decent.

In the end, I only trust one rule: the money you make and the taxes you pay have to match. Without saying anything else, keeping enough evidence matters more than anything else.