70% drop in crypto wealth
The new tax figures show, that the reported amount of crypto wealth for Norwegians was at 1.4 billion NOK in 2018. This is a 3.6 billion NOK drop from 2017, when crypto wealth reported was at 5 billion.
This represents a decline of just over 70% and reflects the sharp decline in bitcoin and the altcoin market throughout 2018.
Nearly 1 billion in reported profits
When we look at realized losses and gains, we see a completely different picture. According to the Norwegian Tax Agency’s figures, gains were realized at around 800 million NOK, while there were only realized loses at around 300 million NOK. Admittedly, more loses than gains have been realized, but the losses have on average been smaller.
This means that Norwegians have either largely retained their crypto investments and/or had substantially lower entry values, than the peak that occurred in December 2017. There may also have been traders who have taken so-called short positions, where they make money on the fall in the market.
Only a few have reported
The number of people who have reported crypto on the tax return fell from around 8,000 to around 7,000 from 2017 to 2018. The fall may be due to the fact, that some sold out during 2017 and did not enter again in 2018, a year when prices fell a lot.
At the same time, there are very large dark numbers. The tax authorities say they have a list of over 60,000 named people who they believe have owned or own cryptocurrency. In addition, previous studies show that around 200,000 people claim to own cryptocurrency in Norway.
There are probably many who have small values in cryptocurrency and therefore have not registered this in the tax return. However, cryptocurrency is subject to reporting requirements from the first kroner. For those who have not been aware of this, or have forgotten to report, there are opportunities to go in and correct themselves.