During the last couple of years, all around the world, there have been numerous discussions on what the proper taxation mechanism for digital currencies is. The lack of a united approach towards this issue has led to countries implementing vastly different taxation policies.

The issue goes deeper, as in the United States, citizens aren’t yet sure what approach they should consider when doing their taxes. While the IRS has provided guidance on bitcoin transactions for a couple of years, bitcoin is considered as property. This means that the purchase, trade, sale and mining of crypto can be regarded to as taxable actions.

The last couple of months have been nothing short of incendiary for digital currency users throughout the world. Following Bitcoin’s massive increase to $20,000 in 2017, the coin has been facing large volatility ever since. A few days ago, the bitcoin price managed to rebound more than $1,000 in less than 24 hours, after its price increased from $6,900 to over $8,000.

Economic analysts have found plausible reasons for both the decrease and increase in price. To kick things off, the price fall sustained until now, can be attributed to fear-selling, tax liability and regulatory changes. Tax liability is a bigger issue than people expected at first, considering the fact that the large price increase created massive short-term gains, which are taxable by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in the United States. With $590 billion in value created in 2017 alone and U.S. holders capturing roughly 30% of value growth, many had to sell in order to keep their taxes in check, and avoid any issues with the IRS.