As of right now, every purchase made using any cryptocurrency is defined by the IRS as a taxable event. Every single time you spend Bitcoin Cash on a social media "tip," or a cup of coffee, or an article on Yours.org, you're technically supposed to make note of the USD price of BCH and calculate any capital gains you've realized, exactly as if you had converted your Bitcoin Cash to USD before using it. If you've ever paid taxes on crypto gains, you know how complicated the accounting can be. Requiring that work to be done for every transaction is clearly unreasonable, and will ultimately constitute a real barrier to mass adoption. Using peer-to-peer electronic cash for small over-the-counter transactions should not require meticulous recordkeeping or lead to a massive tax bill. Regular users of foreign currencies don't normally have to worry about this problem, because the tax code defines an exemption for any purchase that doesn't involve a gain of more than $200.

Legislation that would create a similar exemption for cryptocurrency transactions has already been written and proposed,