I've been staking Ethereum on Lido for about 8 months now and getting regular rewards. I'm trying to figure out when exactly I owe taxes on this - is it when I receive the rewards, or when I eventually sell? And do I need to report the USD value on the day I received them or can I use the price when I actually cash out?
Don't treat staking rewards as a capital gain that only matters when you sell - most tax authorities (including the IRS in the US) want you to report income the moment those rewards hit your wallet, using the USD value on that exact day you received them. From there, any price movement between receipt and sale becomes a separate capital gain or loss. So if you got 0.5 ETH worth $1,500 on January 15th, that's $1,500 in taxable income immediately, even if you hold it and it becomes worth $2,000 by the time you eventually sell. You'll want to track each reward deposit separately with its date and value, which is tedious but necessary - most staking platforms have export features or you can pull transaction history to build your records.
Log into answer.
