Every disposal is a taxable event — even swaps
Crypto is property in the eyes of the IRS, which makes the taxable-event list longer than most holders expect. Selling for dollars: obviously taxable. Trading ETH for SOL: a disposal of ETH at market value — taxable. Spending crypto on goods: a disposal — taxable. Even gas fees paid in-kind can constitute small disposals. The only non-events are moving coins between your own wallets and buying with cash you already taxed. Each disposal computes gain as proceeds minus cost basis, then applies the holding-period rule: over one year, the preferential long-term schedule; a year or less, ordinary rates. A frequent trader generating fifty small disposals a year owes the same schedule on each — the calculator handles the blended picture.
The rates, and where 2026 reporting changes the game
Long-term crypto gains ride the same 0/15/20% schedule as stocks: 0% under $49,450 of taxable income (single, 2026), 15% up to $545,500, 20% above — plus the 3.8% NIIT at high incomes. Short-term gains stack on ordinary income at full bracket rates, which on a working professional’s salary usually means 22-24%. What changed for 2026 is enforcement surface: brokers now issue Form 1099-DA reporting proceeds and cost basis, and the IRS matching engine reads it. The era of "my exchange didn’t report" is over for US-covered brokers; DEX activity remains self-reported, but on-chain analytics make "invisible" a shrinking category. The honest planning posture: assume every disposal is visible and compute accordingly.
A worked example: the 2021 buyer selling in 2026
You bought $4,000 of Bitcoin in 2021, sold some this year for $12,000 of proceeds — all long-term — while earning a $78,000 salary. Gain: $8,000. Your taxable income stays far below the $545,500 single-filer 15%-rate ceiling, so the entire $8,000 gain is taxed at 15% ≈ $1,200 federal. If instead you had sold at a $200,000 salary pushing taxable income over the ceiling, the top slice reaches 20% + 3.8% NIIT. And had this been a three-month hold, the same $8,000 would ride your 22% marginal bracket — $1,760, a 47% premium over the patient answer. Time-of-hold is the biggest lever in crypto tax, and it is free.
Losses, wash sales, and the 2026 rule change
Net crypto losses offset gains — crypto against stocks after netting within each class, then up to $3,000 against ordinary income, the rest carrying forward. The historical loophole — crypto was not a "security," so the wash-sale rule did not apply — is narrowing: the 2026 reporting regime brings token disposals into scope where wash-sale-style loss harvesting on securities is barred, and legislative proposals extend wash-sale treatment to crypto outright. Plan as if harvesting crypto losses at a loss then rebuying immediately will be disallowed, because the direction of enforcement is one-way. Harvesting remains legitimate when done like equity harvesting: sell the loss, wait 31 days, rebuy — the same discipline stock investors already follow.
Records that will save the return
What the 1099-DA will not capture: DEX trades, self-custody swaps, P2P sales and anything predating your current broker. For those, the audit-proof record is per-disposal: date, asset, amount, USD fair market value at transaction time, cost basis of the specific units (your method — FIFO default, or specific ID if your records support it), fees, and destination. Export monthly, not at tax season; exchange APIs have retention limits and shuttered exchanges issue no corrected forms. For DeFi positions the record is the wallet history plus block explorer timestamps. The burden of proof is on the return-filer, and "my number is from a spreadsheet I can no longer open" is the sentence tax lawyers bill by the hour to hear.
Estimates for planning only — not tax, legal or accounting advice. Your actual return depends on facts this tool does not ask about. Figures are based on IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 (tax year 2026), verified October 2026.