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What are we supposed to do for tax purposes, if we've mined altcoins for years, traded them in exchanges like cryptsy with no records, and now have no idea about where we got our current stash of bitcoins from? Ie, we've now got all this wealth which we can't touch because we don't know how much tax we have to pay / should have paid while trading over the years, and are also afraid of withdrawing to the bank with no proof of where it came from?

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This is not tax advice - but couldn't you just hold them in one place for a year, convert them to dollars, and report them as long-term capital gains with a cost basis of $0? That might be wrong, but I don't think you could be penalized for _under_estimating your cost basis.

Note: I don't know this for sure, so if someone knows the right answer, would be good to know.

Yeah thanks, that's sort of what I'm thinking of doing. I got most of then when bitcoin was $80 - $900, so I don't mind over pay tax. Just don't want my bank accounts frozen, assets seized, and to have to prove I'm not a drug dealer or something.

Listen to this podcast that Tyson and Jason (2 tax cpas who do a lot crypto) did:

https://www.breaker.audio/unchained-big-ideas-from-the-world...

It talks about this scenario. I’d also consider just hiring one of them.

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