Tax Dodging 101: How to Lose $13 Million in NFT Profits Really Fast 🧠
OVERVIEW
Tax Dodging 101: How to Lose $13 Million in NFT Profits Really Fast 🧠
Before we dive in, here’s today’s crypto market heatmap:
Source: Santiment
And here’s a look at crypto’s total market and altcoin market cap charts:
Source: TradingView
NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Crypto News 📰
🎣 Phishing Mastermind Gets 8 Year
Turns out even the slickest criminal masterminds can’t outrun blockchain analytics (or British cops). Zak Coyne, creator of phishing service LabHost—which defrauded over a million victims out of $132 million—was sentenced to 8.5 years in jail. Coyne cleverly accepted payment in Bitcoin, accumulating $230,000 in crypto profits before authorities pulled the plug. Decrypt.
💸 PumpSwap Hits $2.5B Weekly Volume
Somewhere, a legitimate blockchain dev just rage-quit their job. Pump.Fun’s PumpSwap DEX processed an absurd $2.5 billion in weekly trades, generating over $1 million daily in fees. More than 500 wallets earned at least $1 million last week, proving you don’t need good ideas to get rich in crypto. Cointelegraph.
🤖 AI Tokens Tank as Nvidia Traders Brace for Impact
AI-related crypto tokens sank after suspiciously bearish Nvidia options trades suggested someone’s expecting the AI hype bubble to pop soon. Nvidia’s ambitious plan to build AI supercomputers in the U.S. evidently wasn’t enough to stop investors from panic-buying puts like toilet paper in a pandemic. CoinDesk.
🐋 Tether Joins Ocean to Decentralize Bitcoin Mining
$USDT.X ( ▲ 0.0% ) partnered with Ocean to decentralize Bitcoin mining pools, challenging giants like AntPool and Foundry USA—who currently mine over 66% of blocks. Ocean currently controls roughly 1% of the mining market, meaning this move is like throwing a pebble at a whale. Still, points to Tether for believing it can single-handedly dismantle centralization by mining a handful of blocks from El Salvador. ZyCrypto.
☁️ AWS Outage Takes Down Major Crypto Exchanges
An AWS outage temporarily crippled Binance, KuCoin, and several other exchanges, reminding everyone exactly how decentralized crypto really isn’t. The incident reignited calls for decentralized cloud alternatives like Filecoin ($FIL.X ( ▼ 0.74% )) and Akash ($AKT.X ( ▼ 5.98% )). ecoinimist.
PRESENTED BY STOCKTWITS
Trends With Friends: The Ethereum Story 🎞️
Howard, Michael, Phil, and Tom are joined by special guests Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci, the filmmakers behind “The Ethereum Story.” This jam-packed episode explores macro madness, market sentiment, and crypto’s conflicted future.
From record bearishness and VIX spikes to what Vitalik Buterin’s life really says about decentralization, the crew unpacks the psychology of investors, the global AI race, and the business of storytelling in a fragmented media landscape. 👀
NFTs
Punked by Paper Trails: IRS Busts NFT Flipper for $13M Income Lie
Happy Tax Day! 😠
Said no one ever. And especially not for this guy.
Waylon Wilcox, a 45-year-old genius from Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, set a speed record in the “Oh crap, the IRS is watching” category—pleading guilty on April 9, 2025, just 12 days after being charged on March 28.
Wilcox managed to “forget” reporting over $13 million in profits from flipping 97 NFTs from the CryptoPunks collection. 🤔
In 2021, Wilcox’s tax return conveniently overlooked around $8.5 million in income, slicing his tax bill by a casual $2.1 million. He doubled down in 2022, missing another $4.6 million and saving himself over $1 million more in taxes.
The IRS, however, apparently has access to blockchain explorers and a basic calculator, uncovering Wilcox’s sales of 62 CryptoPunks for $7.4 million in 2021 and another 35 for $4.9 million in 2022. Despite his large-scale NFT flipping, Wilcox flatly answered “no” on his returns when asked if he’d sold or exchanged crypto or digital assets. 🙄
IRS Special Agent in Charge Yury Kruty didn’t hide his irritation, pointing out that in today’s economy, paying your taxes is somehow still mandatory. Wilcox’s speedrun confession after getting charged suggests he might’ve underestimated the IRS’s ability to Google stuff.
Now Wilcox faces up to six years in federal prison, supervised release, and fines big enough to make him wish he’d just coughed up the taxes on his Punk profits. 🤦
ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
Burnt Bag Briefing 🔥
Want to know whether the bulls or bears are feeling the most pain today? Well, this is the place to look. 👀
24-Hour Liquidation Heat Map – Source: coinglass – Click to enlarge.
In the past 24 hours, 86,947 traders were liquidated, with total liquidations reaching nearly $170.86 million.
The largest single liquidation occurred on Binance, an ETHUSD pair valued at $2.78 million.
Longs lost $94.33 million, while shorts were hit for $76.53 million. 🤕
STOCKTWITS
Sentiment Says: Meh. 🤷
How are Stocktwits users feeling about the crypto market lately? Let’s take a look. 👀
Bitcoin
Bitcoin Sentiment
Everyone’s favorite crypto barometer, is currently sitting pretty neutral at a sentiment score of 52. A month ago, traders were decidedly bearish (47), indicating confidence hasn’t exactly surged.
Over the past half-year, $BTC.X ( ▼ 0.71% ) sentiment hasn’t moved much beyond “meh” territory (54 six months ago), suggesting traders might as well flip a coin. 🪙
Ethereum
Ethereum Sentiment
$ETH.X ( ▼ 3.64% ) isn’t faring much better. Remember six months ago when ETH was the darling child at 74 (extremely bullish)? Well, those dreams evaporated faster than your gains on a leveraged trade.
With scores consistently bearish-to-neutral over the past three months, ETH holders seem more exhausted than excited these days. 🥱
Solana
Solana Sentiment
$SOL.X ( ▲ 1.07% ) currently leads the pack at 57—solidly bullish, but not exactly throwing a party. Just a week ago, SOL traders were extremely bullish at 74, but that euphoria clearly didn’t survive the weekend.
Still, it’s a notable bounce from last month’s dismal 43, proving once again SOL traders have a special talent for mood swings. 🎉
XRP
XRP Sentiment
XRP continues to underwhelm with a sentiment score of 45. Sentiment peaked three months back at 68 but overall the hangovers from the lawsuit wins are still present.
Bottom line: Stocktwits crypto sentiment scores reveal that traders are stuck in a never-ending loop of uncertainty. 🤷♂️
EMAIL ME
Tell Me What You Want 🔊
Quick note here: Let me know what you’d like to see more of in the Litepaper.
More charts? More on-chain analytics? More data? Let me know! 🎇
E-mail me here: jmorgan@stocktwits.com
NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
AI, Stablecoins, & Privacy News 🕵️
🤖 aelf Blockchain Backs GodGPT, Language Officially Has Feelings Now
Blockchain platform aelf announced strategic support for GodGPT and aevatar.ai, building infrastructure for onchain AI “personas” that can earn $ELF.X ( ▲ 2.73% ) tokens by resonating deeply with users. In other words, we’re finally giving AI personalities incentive structures, which absolutely can’t end badly. Congratulations humanity—you invented Skynet, but at least it’ll pay you crypto. aelf.
🛡️ Zcash Teases Major Updates for Privacy Wallet Zashi, Still Can’t Hide Your Bad Trades
Electric Coin Company released its ambitious Q2 roadmap updates for its Zashi wallet, including Tor support, DEX integration, and improved key recovery methods. These upgrades bolster $ZEC.X ( ▼ 1.86% )s’s privacy game significantly, ensuring nobody can track your purchases—or your spectacular investment failures. Privacy can’t fix bad judgment, but at least your shame stays anonymous. Zcash.
NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Metaverse, NFT, & Gaming News 🎮️
🎮 Sui Makes Web3 Easy for Game Devs
$SUI.X ( ▼ 4.34% ) introduced a powerful suite of tools making Web3 integration painless for game developers, featuring dynamic NFTs, rapid transaction speeds, and zero-compromise gameplay experiences. Devs can now effortlessly weave blockchain into their games without sacrificing speed or usability, though sadly, nothing yet stops your teammates from feeding. Sui.
🎲 CropBytes RPG Launches on SKALE
CropBytes Conquest, a blockchain-based strategy RPG, launched gas-free on the $SKL.X ( ▼ 1.04% ) Network, combining turn-based battles with true NFT ownership. The game lets players trade, sell, and truly own in-game assets without ridiculous fees, meaning your poor tactical decisions now cost exactly zero dollars extra. SKALE.
NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
DeFi, DEX, & Lending Protocol News 🏦
💧 Ondo Finance’s OUSG Offers Instant Liquidity Backup, Banks Quietly Panic
Que traditional banking tears. Ondo Finance highlighted $OUSG.X ( ▲ 0.01% )‘s instant liquidity infrastructure after seamlessly handling Circle’s recent outage through backup liquidity channels. With multi-layered redundancy and upcoming PayPal integrations, Ondo’s tokenized Treasuries now boast instant liquidity stronger than traditional markets. Ondo Finance.
📡 Huddle01 Builds Zoom Without Zoom
Huddle01 unveiled decentralized, peer-to-peer video conferencing infrastructure built on Arbitrum, targeting communities allergic to centralization (or common sense). Its distributed node network already hosts millions of meeting minutes, offering a crypto-native alternative to Zoom. Arbitrum’s low latency keeps calls smooth, though sadly can’t improve your boss’s Wi-Fi. Arbitrum.
LINKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🔗
🏦 Standard Chartered Projects $2 Trillion Stablecoin Boom in Wake of New Legislation
🏪 Amazon is concerned about 3rd party sellers due to tariffs
😲 Peter Brandt dismisses Bitcoin price reversal yet: Here is what to watch out for ahead
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Author Disclosure: The author of this newsletter holds positions in ADA, IMX, COPI, MIN, AGIX, ALGO, ZEC, XLM, and NEAR. 📋
