1031 tax deferred exchange applies to tangible property used in trade or a business. The IRS definition of “trade” is different than what retail equities, futures, currencies, etc. trader may think of. Buying and selling various cryptocurrencies will not qualify for 1031 tax treatment anymore than an investor “exchanging” SPY for DIA.
To me, the only attraction the cryptos have is there is a higher proportion of unsophisticated participants versus other markets. This implies there may be easier money to be made because sentiment indicators and chart patterns may be more reliable. However, due to transaction costs, account security issues, and potential regulatory changes it is not worth for me to participate.
I suppose you could simply blindly buy all new cryptos, hope you don’t get hacked or otherwise lose your coin and hope the ones that do go up exceed the ones that go down. However the aforementioned idea implies two things: 1) The person who attempts to blindly buys these things does not have edge in trading. If they did, they would focus on their proven system in the particular market they are confortable in. 2) There is potentially no limit to supply for cryptocurrencies with all these new “issues” coming out. This apparent ramping up of supply does not bode well for price appreciation potential as has been seen in the past.
In addition, it is likely that someone will cross some lines in hyping their coin and invite a regulatory response when someone prominent gets hurts directly or indirectly. By indirectly, I mean a credit card issuing bank losing money because the customer finds a way to bypass their cyptocurrency restrictions, loses their creditline, and the bank is left holding the empty bag.
There is no such thing as free money. Unsophisticated participants end up paying the sophisticated traders. At least with equities, a long term investor can collect dividends and or participate in likely long term appreciation of solid ETFs or companies.
hm good points. yes there seems to be more dumb money in this space, but trading may still be very tricky as the whales have too much manipulation power.