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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Notes -
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.
Wait a second. Doesn't Bitcoin have a record of every transaction ever? Couldn't you just look at the blockchain to see when you got your coins?
The coins were bought off-chain, on an exchange.
In the bitcoin economy as it actually exists, most transactions between people happen off-chain (across the books of an exchange, or in the Lightning Network), and most on-chain transactions are people moving money from one hand to another (exchange deposits and withdrawals, opening and closing Lightning channels, transfers to and from cold wallets).
The easiest way to think about it is that Bitcoin replaces gold bullion, not money. Moving bullion out of the vault it is stored in is exceptional - most transactions happen by exchange of warehouse receipts.
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