Introducing Polkalytics Account Reports

This article gives the first details on Polkalytics Account Reports, follows the path of an on-chain riddle, and begins the quest to survey the Polkadot Data Ecosystem.

It always fascinated me how tens of thousands of people rush into Polkadot parachains to test them out and experience the cutting edge of crypto, while at the same time, they have no clue how they are going to file their Polkadot taxes at the end of the year. Sure, taxes work differently for everyone. Depending on where on this beautiful planet they reside and what legal structure they have set up for themselves, they pay 50%, 20%, 10%, 2%, 0.2%, or 0% in crypto taxes. Some pay zero, but most have to pay something.

It’s tax season in many parts of the world. For some businesses that are deep into Polkadot, this means they have 50 or more accounts for all the parachains they use. And they need to report on all of those for their tax filings. The most common questions they need to get answered are: Which assets and how many did we have at the start of the year and at the end of the year? How much did we earn through staking?

I was sure that someone would take that opportunity and build a reporting tool that helps all those Polkadot community members get this problem solved. But after 1.5 years of waiting, it still didn’t happen. So I decided to take the engine I built to uncover the secrets of the chain (including the 1337Riddle of Kusama). I picked up the challenge to develop a tool that fully explains everything that happened on an account: Polkalytics Account Reports.

After the official announcement of the Polkalytics Closed Alpha Program, over 30 people applied to participate. 8 were able to get into the program so far and I worked personally with them to generate personalized reports and to file their taxes on time. After validating the product and getting feedback that it actually helps people, it’s time to share some details.

How does Polkalytics Account Reports work?

Polkalytics holds a complete Google BigQuery (Big as in Big Data) database of all blocks, transactions, and events that ever happened on Polkadot and Kusama. When Polkalytics Account Reports gets tasked with generating a report for an address (or many addresses), it

1. analyzes all historical transactions and balance changes for that account.
2. It then classifies all account actions into potential tax categories according to what happened, e.g. transfers, staking rewards, etc. You then can use this report to apply the rules of your tax jurisdiction to it.

Types of Transactions

The Polkadot and Kusama relay chains are already supported by Polkalatics Account Reports with the following classifications:

• Transfers
• Crowdloan participation
• XCM transfers
• Staking Rewards
• Fees
• Other minor stuff (index reservations, reserve repatriations, dust lost for deleting accounts)

Apply for the Closed Alpha

After having successfully helped the first few users, Polkalytics is opening up for more participants. The fee to participate is 50 USD and will work on a first-come, first-served basis as capacity is available. Work in the coming months will focus on adding more chains and making reports available to as many people as possible at affordable prices.

If you want to skip the line, the current asking price is 125 USD.

There will be some promotional offers from time to time. Make sure to get them by subscribing to the Polkalytics Newsletter and following @Polkalytics on Twitter.