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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2892 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 12, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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I bought some ethereum and bitcoin on Coinbase back when I was a teen (before either they or I kept good records), and still have it on the exchange now. I believe there is absolutely no shot of nailing down an estimate to even the year's granularity of the purchase date, so I can't just retroactively fudge the basis, either.

Is just donating it as-is to charity the cleanest way to wash my hands of this ambiguously-basis'd balance, or is that likely to somehow be even worse than just biting the bullet of a "$0.00 basis" plea?

Considering the possibility that no custodial exchange will keep my crypto unbreached all the way up through my death, just leaving it in there and banking on the free death basis step-up is a bad option, I'd think.

If it was long enough ago that you can't even estimate the year, a $0.00 basis is going to be pretty close to accurate anyway. Charity is a good approach if you don't want to deal with it and do want to make similarly-sized charitable contributions though.

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