What Records Should You Keep After Selling Worthless Crypto?

The moment after a worthless-asset sale is the easiest time to build a complete record. The wallet is open, the transaction is recent, the market checks are still available, and you know why you acted. Months later, a project site or marketplace page may be gone and a token symbol may mean nothing.

What records should you keep after selling worthless crypto?

Organize the evidence into four groups:

1. Identity: blockchain, wallet address, contract or mint address, NFT asset address, token symbol, and collection.
2. Acquisition: date and time, quantity, cost or basis source, transaction signature, exchange statement, and any income record.
3. Market condition: venues checked, executable quotes or absent bids, project communications, on-chain restrictions, and the date of each observation.
4. Disposition: confirmed signature, counterparty, quantity, proceeds, fees, rent effects, and fiat-value source used in your books.

Keep your tax professional's notes and the final return workpaper with those source records. A future reviewer should be able to move from acquisition to market condition to final action without guessing which similarly named token you meant.

Is the blockchain transaction signature enough?

A Solana explorer can show accounts, instructions, token-balance changes, fees, and a block time. It cannot know whether a transfer between two addresses was a sale to another person or a movement between wallets you control. It also does not reconstruct an exchange purchase or tell you which jurisdiction's rules govern the return.

Use the signature as an index key. Include it in your ledger row, screenshot filenames, and adviser memo. That makes the evidence searchable and avoids relying on a wallet's changing display history.

What does the IRS say US taxpayers should record?

The IRS's current digital-assets page says taxpayers must keep records sufficient to support positions taken on federal returns. For calculating gain or loss, it identifies the type of digital asset, date and time of the transaction, number of units, fair market value at the time, and basis of the disposed asset. Its digital-asset FAQs also refer to records of receipts, sales, exchanges, dispositions, transfers, and fair market value.

That guidance does not establish that a particular worthless-token transaction qualifies for a loss, and it is not a universal list for every country. US readers should use it as a starting point with a qualified adviser. Readers elsewhere should follow their own tax authority and professional advice.

How should you document that no market existed?

Write down facts, not conclusions. For a fungible token, record the exact mint or contract, quantity entered, aggregator or exchange checked, date and time, and whether an executable route appeared. For an NFT, record the verified collection, item, collection bids, item bids, trait bids when relevant, and the marketplaces checked.

Save evidence of technical blockers separately. A frozen account, non-transferable token, active stake, escrowed listing, or unsupported asset can prevent a sale even when the asset is not economically worthless. Your adviser needs to distinguish no market from no transfer.

Useful supporting records can include:

• dated screenshots with visible venue and asset identifiers;
• exported order, quote, or transaction data;
• project shutdown or liquidity-removal announcements;
• explorer links showing relevant mint or account state; and
• notes describing failed sale attempts without overstating what they prove.

Which fields should a Solana disposal record contain?

For a Sol Incinerator Tax Loss Harvester sale, capture the tool's displayed line items rather than recording only 1 lamport (0.000000001 SOL):

The source token account is closed in the sale flow, which can release approximately 0.00204 SOL of rent. Destination-account rent can be a cost, so do not combine every SOL movement into “sale proceeds.” Compressed NFTs have no individual token-account rent.

How should you store crypto tax evidence?

Use durable formats you can open independently of one wallet or tax app. Export CSV or PDF records where available, save text copies of addresses and signatures, and retain original files without editing them. Back up the archive securely, but never put a recovery phrase or private key in a tax folder.

Choose filenames that sort and explain themselves, such as a date plus chain, mint abbreviation, and signature prefix. Keep a small index listing each asset, action, source files, and adviser conclusion. Follow the retention period your professional specifies; do not use a generic blog post as the rule.

Related Reading

• Solana Tax-Loss Harvesting Checklist for 2026
• Crypto Tax-Loss Harvesting Deadline: When Must You Sell?
• Can You Claim a Loss on Crypto You Cannot Sell?
• How to Handle a Rug-Pulled Solana Token at Tax Time