Understand U.S. record keeping requirements for taxes, exports, healthcare, and employment. Learn retention rules from IRS, BIS, GIPS, OSHA, and EEOC - and how to avoid costly penalties.
Record Keeping Requirements for Crypto: What You Must Track to Stay Legal
When you trade, stake, or earn cryptocurrency, you’re not just participating in a new financial system—you’re creating a legal paper trail. Record keeping requirements, the official rules for documenting crypto transactions to meet tax and regulatory obligations. Also known as crypto accounting, it’s not optional. The IRS, HMRC, and other global agencies treat crypto like property, not cash. If you can’t prove what you bought, sold, or earned, you’re at risk of penalties, audits, or worse. This isn’t about fancy spreadsheets or crypto tax software—it’s about having the raw data ready when someone asks for it.
Blockchain transaction logs, permanent, public records of every crypto transfer on a ledger. Also known as on-chain data, they’re your best friend for reconstruction. Every wallet address, timestamp, and amount sent or received is stored forever. But here’s the catch: public doesn’t mean usable. You still need to link those addresses to your identity—like which exchange account sent the ETH, or which DeFi protocol earned you the yield. That’s where crypto tax records, the private, organized summary of your taxable events tied to your real-world identity come in. Without matching your exchange statements to your wallet history, you’re guessing your gains and losses. And guessing is how people get audited.
Most people think they only need to track buys and sells. But what about staking rewards? Airdrops? NFT sales? Swaps on Uniswap? Each counts as a taxable event. The crypto compliance, the set of legal standards that force individuals and businesses to document and report crypto activity rules are broad—and getting stricter. India’s new OECD reporting framework, the UAE’s FATF compliance, even China’s crypto ban—all of them rely on accurate records. If you can’t show where your crypto came from or where it went, regulators will assume the worst.
And it’s not just for tax season. If you ever get hacked, scammed, or need to prove ownership of an NFT, your records are your only defense. The KART airdrop that vanished? The VAEX exchange that disappeared? The YodeSwap DEX that drained liquidity? All of them left users with nothing but empty wallets—and no proof of what they were owed. Good record keeping doesn’t just protect you from the government. It protects you from the chaos of crypto itself.
You don’t need to be an accountant. You just need to be consistent. Save your exchange statements. Note every wallet address you use. Log every transaction date, amount, and purpose. Use a free spreadsheet if you have to. But don’t wait until April to start. The data you ignore today becomes the problem you pay for tomorrow.
Below, you’ll find real-world examples of what happens when record keeping fails—and what you can learn from it. From fake coins like XREATORS (ORT) to dead exchanges like CPDAX, every post here shows how missing records cost people time, money, and peace of mind.