Recently, major analysts in the English-speaking crypto community, along with Tom Lee, have been blaming the sell-off of cryptocurrencies by North American retail investors on tax-related stop-loss behavior. Saw an analysis on Forbes this morning discussing the same issue. Starting in 2025, centralized exchanges in the U.S. will directly report users' crypto sales and transaction records to the IRS. During the 2026 tax season, they’ll also send forms to users. The problem is, in the initial phase, these forms will typically only show how much money users made from selling crypto, but might not include the original purchase cost. If users can’t clearly report their cost basis, the IRS is likely to calculate taxable income assuming a cost basis of zero and automatically issue a tax bill. At the same time, starting in 2025, the IRS will require cost basis to be calculated separately for each wallet and each exchange account. In other words, the coins you sell on a specific exchange or wallet can only be matched with the cost basis of the assets in that same account or wallet. You can no longer mix and match across platforms or wallets. For investors who operate across multiple exchanges, frequently withdraw coins, participate in DeFi, or use self-custody wallets, the complexity will increase exponentially. The issue is that the IRS system is highly automated. If the data reported by exchanges doesn’t match what taxpayers report, the system could automatically trigger alerts or even issue tax bills. So recently, people have just decided to start selling off their coins, reducing future tax complexity, and locking in gains or losses early to simplify their books.