Trading Cryptocurrencies

Gains and losses from virtual currencies are taxed as capital assets. It are less complicated than options because only the IRS’ 8949 form is involved.

Wallet(s) and Mining

A cryptocurrency wallet is used to store the virtual coins. It is preferred to keep this separate from the cryptocurrency exchanges in order to mine them. An example of a wallet is MyEtherWallet, which is used to store ETH. Mining ETH is only feasible by joining a mining pool (e.g. ethermine).

Another example is LTC and LiteVault, but it’s much more complicated to mine it. One needs to have CUDA installed, compile ccminer (possibly modifying the nvcc_ARCH flag), and then choosing a mining pool that has not been hacked.

It is important to know what coins are still worthwhile to mine i.e. the mining probability.

Exchange(s)

There are many cryptocurrency exchanges to choose from. GDAX allows the purchase of virtual currency with fiat while Bittrex allows trading between virtual currencies. All exchanges have issues, but these are the best of the worst.