In political discourse, the term “cryptocurrencies” is often used as if it were a single, uniform asset class. This often leads to calls for all cryptocurrencies to be taxed differently in the future than they have been in the past.

But that’s exactly where the problem begins.

Today, the term “cryptocurrencies” encompasses thousands of very different projects, technologies, and use cases. Bitcoin, stablecoins, tokenized stocks, utility tokens, memecoins, and even future central bank digital currencies are often lumped together, even though they serve completely different economic functions.

Anyone discussing the tax treatment of cryptocurrencies should therefore first answer the following question:

Which cryptocurrencies, exactly?