American Pleads Guilty in First Major NFT Tax Evasion Case
An american citizen has admitted to evading millions in taxes after failing to report profits from a massive NFT sale, marking what appears to be the first high-profile U.S. tax evasion case in the sector.
Waylon Wilcox pleaded guilty after federal prosecutors revealed he had earned over $13 million from selling 97 CryptoPunk NFTs across 2021 and 2022.
Instead of reporting the profits to the IRS, Wilcox allegedly concealed the income, dodging roughly $3.3 million in tax obligations. The plea comes just ahead of the federal tax filing deadline.
Under U.S. tax law, gains from digital assets like NFTs or cryptocurrencies must be declared, and any resulting profit is subject to capital gains tax.
Wilcox’s actions violated these requirements, with the IRS emphasizing its commitment to cracking down on financial misconduct involving virtual assets.
Yury Kruty, a top IRS official, described the case as an example of the agency’s efforts to hold all taxpayers accountable—especially in the evolving world of digital finance.
In a separate twist, local reports noted that Wilcox’s girlfriend had at one point sought donations on Facebook for beauty pageant expenses, seemingly unaware of his hidden NFT fortune.
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
