Taxes Are a Wild Card for Public Companies Holding Crypto

Block Inc., formerly known as Square, made modest bitcoin investments totaling $220 million during 2020 and 2021. Since then it has recorded impairment losses of $77 million, leaving a carrying value of $148 million. That’s not a big bitcoin investment commitment compared with MicroStrategy. However, fee revenue for facilitating crypto purchases and sales represents 59% of Block’s gross revenue as of Sept. 30, 2021. Gross margins on the crypto transactions were only 2%, and represent only 5% of total gross margin, but revenue from this business now dwarfs its traditional transaction fees.