Ukraine Lost $200M in Taxes from Digital Asset Exchanges in the Past Four Years

Global Ledger undertook the study as part of an initiative by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine

Ukraine Lost Out on $200 Million in Taxes From Digital Asset Exchanges

Ukraine could have collected over $200 million in taxes from digital asset exchanges over the past four years, according to a new report.

The report, by blockchain forensic services provider Global Ledger, analyzed 64 centralized global exchanges and found that 2.5% of global traffic to these exchanges is from Ukrainian investors.

This traffic generated over $1.12 billion in profits for the exchanges from their Ukrainian operations, which translates to $202 million in taxes that should have been paid in that period, the study showed.

Breaking it down further reveals that $57 million was generated in 2021, $43 million in 2022, $40 million in 2023 and $62 million this year.

Interestingly, the report also estimates that Ukrainian traders could have earned between $630 million and $3.16 billion in profits from digital asset trading this year alone. Applying a 5% tax rate, the country could have earned up to $158 million.

Ukraine is not the only country grappling with the challenge of taxing digital assets. With the sector now valued at $3.75 trillion, nearly every government is struggling to come up with a way to tax gains from the industry.

Some, like Russia , have aligned digital asset taxation with stocks, making it easier to calculate and report taxes. Others, like South Korea , have opted to avoid dealing with the tough questions, recently postponing new taxation measures by another two years.

In other countries, like India and Kenya , digital asset traders have gone to court to protest proposed taxation frameworks. In India, the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal stepped in this week, ruling that digital assets are capital assets and that profits should be subjected to capital gains, not as income from other sources.

Moving on from taxes, the Global Ledger report also found that Ukrainian miners contributed roughly 1% of the global hashrate and generated $113 million over the past four years.

Furthermore, Ukrainians had downloaded 1.7 million non-custodial digital asset wallets by May this year.

While Ukraine is yet to implement a comprehensive taxation framework, it is seeking to legalize digital assets early next year. A parliamentary working group is set to table a draft bill before legislators, with input from the central bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).