I'm not a "cryptobro" by any means but when I realized Brave was just handing out free Bravecoin or whatever the hell it's called in exchange for random, unobtrusive ad notifications, I said "what the hell" and set up an account with one of their recommended wallet providers, Uphold. After a year or so of that, I had like $40 in Bravecoin? So I bought some Bitcoin, a decimal of a decimal that hardly registered on Uphold's UI, but it was there. Also bought some dogecoin, because at the time that was all the rage - that money is gone gone, naturally, but none of this was my actual money anyways, so I didn't much care.
So today, I have about $35 in Bitcoin, and maybe $5 in Bravecoin? But I was asked to relink my wallet with the browser to verify my identity or something, and suddenly Uphold says it needs my SSN for IRS tax filing purposes. So I give it to them, answer a brief questionnaire and provide an e-signature about my identity, and then that's it... But now I'm all nervous. Am I going to get some kind of form from Uphold that I'll need to include in my tax return? I've never once actually put my own money into this thing or taken a penny out, so I haven't really invested or profited, it's just a mild curiosity for me... And it's $40, surely even if I did have to file this, it doesn't even register as taxable? But what if it does? What if the mere fact that I hold some form of crypto means the IRS takes more of my money this year?
Just the usual paranoia surrounding taxes in the US because nothing about our tax system makes sense and it's been stuck in the 1940s for nearly a century because some companies make a lot of money off of charging Americans to do their taxes for them. Don't mind me.