Published November 5, 2026
Discover the reasons why cryptocurrency may never reach its previous all-time highs again. It lacks intrinsic value, and tax reporting can become a nightmare.
According to CoinMarketCap data, Bitcoin reached its highest recorded price on October 6th, 2025, with an intraday high of $126,198. As of November 5th, 2026, it has fallen to $75,965.
Its historic gains were mostly due to speculation. Cryptocurrency lacks intrinsic value and relies on people's perception. But, of course, that can change whenever people feel something will negatively affect them, which has already been happening:
Something else is happening that people seem to be overlooking. Gains on Cryptocurrency are taxable. And when you buy merchandise with Cryptocurrency, its gains or losses need to be reported.
I’ll give you an analogy to make this clearly understood. Imagine this scenario:
You buy a car, and you pay with cash. Unfortunately, due to inflation, that cash is worth less than it was two years ago when you saved it in your bank account. So you include the transaction in your 1040 tax report and apply the difference in value as a loss.
Therefore, you get a tax loss credit for using the lower-valued cash to buy that car.
What if we didn’t have inflation and that cash in your savings account had gained value instead? Then that car might cost less due to the increased value of the currency.
In that case, you’d report the transaction as a gain on your 1040 form and pay tax on that gain.
That may sound crazy!
But I have news for you. Even though that’s only an imaginary example, you will need to do that when you use cryptocurrency to make purchases due to government regulations.
So, you see, using cryptocurrency in commerce transactions can turn out to be a nightmare. It's basically only useful for wealth savings. But that investment can lose a lot of value due to its volatility.
And that volatility can be vicious because it has no realistic intrinsic value.
For that reason, I believe we have seen the best years of cryptocurrency. And from here on, it may continue a downward trend.
That could be especially true when people begin to realize how unmanageable the record-keeping is.
If you don’t think that will happen, look at how easily banks are making it possible to pay with your saved Bitcoin using debit cards tied to your cryptocurrency account.
For example, Coinbase offers a Visa® debit card. Coinbase will automatically convert all cryptocurrency to US Dollars for use in purchases and ATM withdrawals.4
In addition, on July 28, 2025, PayPal announced "Pay with Crypto," enabling instant crypto to stablecoin or fiat conversion, supporting transactions across over 100 cryptocurrencies.5
U.S. taxpayers need to report crypto sales and conversions to the IRS. Those transactions may be taxed as capital gains or losses.
Consequently, people who use debit cards for purchases, whether in-store or online, might not realize they are generating a taxable gain or loss that must be reported when filing their taxes.
If the use of cryptocurrency in commerce increases, the hassle of reporting transactions could dampen the further advancement of any cryptocurrency’s value.
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