There is two types of staking:
- Natural staking refers to the traditional process of staking where users lock up their cryptocurrency to support network operations such as validating transactions, in return for staking rewards.
- Liquid staking allows users to stake their cryptocurrency while still having access to the liquidity of their staked assets. Users receive a tokenized representation of their staked assets, which can be used in DeFi applications or traded, providing flexibility and liquidity without un-staking the original assets.
Natural staking is taxed as an income, similar to dividends (at least my accountant told me that). So as a tax optimization I thought that liquid staking might be a way forward. Technically, it just swapping your token to liquid stake token with the idea that the price of liquid stake token will raise relative to the underlying token due to staking. So my income is capital gain in this case.
I wonder if someone got tax decision on liquid staking to confirm my interpretation. My fear is that they can interpret it as a derivative and then I might be considered professional investor with all the consequences.