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The Measuring Post is a podcast about growth, not perfection.
It’s a place to pause, reflect, and measure what actually matters in your life, your work, and your personal development. Not by comparing yourself to others, but by comparing who you are today to who you were yesterday.
I'm Joe Massa, and I created this show because I believe growth isn't a solo journey. Each week, you’ll hear thoughtful interviews with incredible guests: entrepreneurs, leaders, creatives, and everyday people doing meaningful work, sharing real experiences, lessons learned, and practical insights you can apply right away. These conversations are designed to help you think differently, grow intentionally, and move forward with clarity.
Alongside the interviews, you’ll also find The Daily Measure, short, bite-sized solo episodes focused on simple words of wisdom and actionable ideas you can use in your daily life. Think of these as quick check-ins to help you stay grounded, focused, and consistent.
This isn’t about hype or shortcuts. It’s about honest conversations, small improvements, and growing together over time.
If you’re someone who values progress, reflection, and becoming a better version of yourself, you’re in the right place.
Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, join the conversation, and grow with us.
Joe Massa (00:02.103)
Okay. And it is Jana, correct? I want to make sure I'm pronouncing it right.
Janna Scott (00:06.274)
Well, we can go down the rabbit hole. I was born and raised in Germany, so it's technically Jana, but I go by Jana, I go by Jana, I go by mom. So
Joe Massa (00:17.609)
Yeah. I won't call your mom, but I I I'm happy to use Yana. That that I wanna make sure we're using it right.
Janna Scott (00:22.445)
That work?
Joe Massa (00:28.023)
Mm.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Measuring Post. Joe Massa here in a place where we truly measure what matters. And today we've got a fun conversation about a topic I know a lot of us are interested in, but not many of us understand. And really, there's two sides to this that are very equally confusing: the cryptocurrency market and taxes, right? Two of our favorite conversation topics. But imagine you took one crypto wallet, just one, you run it through 14 different tax programs, the big names, the ones
That you trust, the ones you've heard of, and you get fourteen different answers back, some of them differing by tens of thousands of dollars. This is the same wallet, the same data, fourteen versions of what you supposedly owe, but you got different answers. How confusing would that be? Well, that has actually happened, and the person who ran this experiment is my guest today.
My guest today is Janna Scott. She's the CEO and co-founder of Defy Tax, and she built a career in tax and finance. And a few years back, her own clients started really asking her this simple question Are my crypto taxes accurate or correct? Well then she realized
She wasn't really sure. So instead of guessing, she went down and tore the whole system apart to find out what exactly was going on. But before we get started, I want to make a quick note. I myself am not a tax expert. So don't consider this, you know, legitimate tax advice from me. If you do have questions about crypto or taxes in general, make sure you talk to your tax professional. But with that in mind, please welcome Yana to the measuring post. Yana, how are you today?
Janna Scott (02:05.858)
I'm great. Thanks for having me, Joe.
Joe Massa (02:09.086)
Yeah, I really appreciate you coming on. And again, this is one of those conversations that not everyone is excited about because taxes are not like a fun topic of conversation. But they're one of those things like death and taxes. They're guaranteed. We're gonna deal with this. So I really like to educate our audience on what we can do to make sure we're, you know, protecting our own assets. And obviously crypto has been a hot topic for the last 10, 15 years. So with that in mind, sort of kind of tell us how you fell into this and
You know, have you been in crypto since the very beginning? Taxes, where did you sort of fit into this puzzle?
Janna Scott (02:47.97)
So crypto, I myself started in crypto about 2017, you know, kind of trading here and there, started on one of the major exchanges. And I've been in finance all a lot longer than I've been in crypto, but one thing that also didn't cross my mind was crypto taxes. it just
I guess we didn't have enough explanation, enough regulation, a enough definition on how to use it back then and how to how to report it. But in
In 21-22, I had more and more clients as I in I had started my own tax and accounting firm after I left some government jobs that I held in as financial consultants, tax specialists, fiscal analysts. And I had clients approach me and they said, Hey, I I've paid these programs or I've paid these crypto tax experts and I've paid them, you know, like thousands of dollars.
some tens of thousands of dollars to get my crypto taxes done, how do I know if they're accurate? Well and I don't like not having answers. that's that's a little bit
It's a weakness and a strength of mine. So I went down the rabbit hole and I, like you mentioned earlier, I signed up for all the 14 products that were on the market, some very well known, some out of the country, some very small. And I took my little my little wallet that had at that time about 350 transactions on, and I knew exactly what they were. Very simple, right? A straight up buy, sell, and and just a conversion, you know, Bitcoin to Ethereum or
Janna Scott (04:29.754)
Ethereum too, Bitcoin, either way. And I don't know what I expected. I guess I didn't really expect anything. I just I took it and I I imported it. I did the same thing that they told me to do, somewhere CSV files, somewhere OAuth2. So you know, I did I followed their their rules that was set forth by the products. And the first two different numbers, the third.
Fourth, fifth, and so on. Every single product came up with a different outcome when two plus two should equal four across the board. And that's when I really started.
getting curious but also frustrated because these are multi-billion dollar products. These are multi run by multi-billion dollar companies, backed by multi-billion dollar companies. And my concern was so because they have the backing, do they not have the responsibility to
ensure that the users are are as protected as they can be. And I know, listen, I've heard this a lot. You know, it's like, look, people don't necessarily care about the wrong right or wrong. They care about what's what gives them the least tax liability when reporting. Ultimately that doesn't matter, right? If you get audited, if there's an audit, it doesn't matter what you reported, it matters what the outcome is. And if you use something that yes it maybe tells you you have $10,000 of losses, woo-hoo, doesn't mean it's right. So
I went and I took it took me about nine months to go through all the products and to find out how they came up with their calculations and to to do the calculations myself on my own raw data.
Janna Scott (06:18.302)
and figure out exactly why each of the products are inaccurate, what cost the inaccuracies, and then how to do it right. And I took this research and I actually offered it to all the products on the market for free.
I said, hey, I found out what's what you're doing wrong. Crypto audits, this was after the John Doe letters went out that basically allowed the government to collect your data from KYC exchanges and say, hey, do you have crypto? Yep, tell us.
And they're still doing it by the way. They just in 2025 they got their last round of John Doe letters back. They know if you have crypto. You can try and tell them no, you can have it on on a super secret ledger in your safe, but if you bought it on any KYC exchange, and that also includes Moon Pay, you they know that you own it. Whether it's sitting somewhere safe or not, they know you have it. So my my biggest concern was.
These individuals, you know, these these what five, six million people at the time that used all these products combined, are not protected. They're not able to use this and say in an audit, I'm defending myself. Because the IRS doesn't care, right? They don't care how you got to it. They care if it's right or wrong. And at that point, the IRS had contracts with some with two of those products.
And those products are also inaccurate. So it's everybody is getting wrong numbers. Everybody is getting different outcomes. And nobody wanted to fix it. So I offered them my research. They said no thanks. Expected, right? Who am I? No.
Joe Massa (07:59.295)
Which is not surprising, but you know, it's it's really i it's it'd be one thing if it were like comparing yours versus mine. Maybe we had different cryptos, maybe we had different ways that we paid ourselves, self-employed and regular employed. But comparing all of those platforms with the same data to get wildly different answers is weird. And so bizarre that because most people I I think when you think of tax software.
You assume it's like a calculator, right? You just you put the numbers in, they spit out the right answer, you don't have to think about it. But this really poked a big hole in sort of that mentality. So how did you figure
Janna Scott (08:27.778)
It is. Well yeah, it is.
Janna Scott (08:35.566)
Well could you imagine going to TurboTax, you know, filing your regular tax return on TurboTax and TurboTax says, you're getting five thousand back, and then you go to H and R block, enter the same data, and they say you get ten thousand back. It doesn't work that way, you know?
Joe Massa (08:39.555)
yeah.
Joe Massa (08:49.62)
Yeah. So how did you decipher, obviously without giving your proprietary algorithm or how you figured it out, what what amount of research went into like poking holes in all of their sort of processes of coming out with that number? How did you come up with your own? Like was it like doing tax law research? Was it really diving deep into the way that crypto is reported? How is sort of just the quick I'm completely clueless high level overview? Would you explain that to
Somebody with no knowledge.
Janna Scott (09:21.398)
Well, so it and this is me saying and and and and my my my business partners, consultants, they always laugh when I say that. It's like it really wasn't that difficult. What it really was is I'm somebody who understands accounting and tax. I'm not a developer, software developer, you know, I don't build pr programs like that. These all these platforms are built by software developers. They put together the algorithms, but
Because they're not tax experts or accounting experts, they're missing crucial details. That is the biggest issue. So I when I first started, after well, let me back up. After we offered all of those products, the research and said, here, just use it and fix it. And this is the fun part, and this is what everybody can verify. We gave it to them sometime in 2023, or we offered it to them. We didn't ask for anything.
And all of a sudden in September of twenty twenty three when I pulled reports, because I poll reports consistently to see if they're updating anything, if they're if they're if they're fixing their mistakes or whatnot.
I pulled the reports again for 2022 and 2021 and 2020, and all of a sudden, while my data stayed the same, their calculations changed. While they didn't want my help and my research, they acknowledged that something was wrong, fixed, tried to fix their mistakes. It's still not wrong, but they tried to fix it without ever letting the users know, saying, Hey, by the way, you used our software for your 2022 taxes. You reported what we calculated on your 2022 taxes.
But by the way, late twenty-three, we made changes to the calculations. So now it no longer matches. So if you get audited and you want to justify why you put the numbers on, sorry, right? So that's one of the biggest issues. And so when
Janna Scott (11:19.692)
When I went deep dive, I pulled the raw data for the test test data that I used. I pulled the raw data and I went and organized it. And I went and organized it based on simple accounting rules, on simple asset basis rules, because it is it is really being treated just like stocks. It's being treated like like a capital asset disposition, like ordinary income, if it's a received if like i it's being treated the same way. You just it is just
A higher volume and it's not clean, right? If I buy one house and I sell one house, that's it. Right? In this case, you you sell buy a house and you sell a quarter of a house and then you sell an eighth of a house and then you have to you have to fractionalize it. But you also have to take into consideration the burn fees, you have to take into consideration the the variances, right? Because the spot price, every s every exchange has their spread. They make up their own spot price essentially, right? Then you are on the on the blockchain where the prices differ again.
If you go look, nobody ever has the same exact price. So you have to take those things into consideration. And and one of the issues that I found is that the first mistake that a lot of these products have is the API data pull. They pull the API data.
Either they pull too much or they pull too little. And that's one of the issues because then it gets convoluted. They don't categorize it. They give you the option to categorize it. Now let me ask you, if you went to your bank and your bank account statement would say, okay, so you spent this money, but hey, why don't you change the category category from spent to received?
So it looks like you have more money in your account. That wouldn't work. Or hey, why don't you change the currency? You wrote a $10,000 check, but let's say it's it's 10,000 yen. It doesn't work that way, but this is what these products allow you to do. While they're pull from the blockchain, which is what happens on the blockchain stays on the blockchain.
Janna Scott (13:23.488)
It is not changeable. You cannot just adjust what is being pulled. But these products, because of their lack of research into the API data that they're getting over, allowing you to accidentally commit fraud. Because none of us go in there wanting to commit fraud. But because they'll give you the option to manipulate the blockchain transactions, that is another big issue.
And then it gets to the math, right? A lot of these programs, because they don't pull full data sets, they will say your wallet has three quarters of a Bitcoin and I'm selling
A whole Bitcoin. Well, how can I sell a whole Bitcoin if I only have three quarters in my wallet according to you? So they make up a zero dollar zero cost buy, which will completely increase your capital gains and decrease your basis. But it's because they pulled not completely accurate data. So there's so many different little things that add up to something big. And again, you know.
Who am I to fight the big corporations, the multi-billion dollar companies? So what happened was I met with the SEC, I met with the IRS, we went over my research, and it wasn't to get anybody, it was just for them to for me to say, you can't do these audits. If you're doing this these audits, A, you're getting the wrong data, the people are getting the wrong data. If you can't even get the right data, how can you expect
the taxpayers to get the right data and and accurately calculate their taxes. And that's when I decided as like if nobody else will fix it, yeah. Go ahead.
Joe Massa (15:02.483)
Yeah. And again
Yeah, and and and the the unfortunate part is you you even talk about like
Hey, you did your taxes with us in 2022. We gave you these numbers a year later that they might not match. But, you know, well, we wash our hands. There's no accountability for for those big, large companies. And unfortunately, that falls onto the user because ignorance is not bliss when it comes to the IRS and taxes and money. You are ultimately responsible. But again, how how would the average Joe or Jane know the difference if the IRS can't even get the accurate information? So that really is.
Quite terrifying because
That's sort of the pull and the the enticement of crypto is that, you know, when it's on the blockchain, it can't be altered. And if you're unfamiliar with the blockchain, it's essentially a a long list of transactions that tie to one another by an encrypted algorithm. So you can't go back and fake something. You can't change zeros and ones and it's supposed to be very secure, but if on the outside of that you can alter the the transaction list or something, that kind of defeats the the purpose of that. So
Joe Massa (16:11.622)
I think it's really powerful that you were able to put together not only this research that you're offering to share with these, you know, you could even say competitors or other companies that really should be doing this right by themselves. But then obviously with them denying your research or their unwillingness to change what they're doing, how did you take this information and then build what became defy tax? And and is this something that your software
is now available that solves some of these issues.
Janna Scott (16:43.64)
Well, see I call it stubbornness. My my my business partner and co founder would call it, you know, something nicer, but I'm saying I'm I'm I'm stubborn, right? I saw the issue. I don't like the unfairness of all of it, and my
When I realized that nobody was fixing anything, I said, Well, let's fix it ourselves. And and again, I'm not I I don't build us I don't build software, right? I do taxes, I do accounting. And so it took us a while to really find a developer which again solidified the issues that the other products are having who would listen, who would understand the intricacies and not just build like an easy algorithm that is used, you know, in the stock market world. Because it's not like the stock market world. It's a lot more
More complex, especially between all the different blockchains, the different exchanges. And the way I built the product is one of the biggest issues was that let's say you're being audited, your business owner, you're being audited.
The IRS will never allow you to use your QuickBooks or Xero or whatever you use for your bookkeeping to be submitted for an audit for justification. They're always asked for the bank statements, the statements that cannot be altered, right? Because what happens in the bank account, like if it if it went out, it went out. If it came in, it came in. They can't change it. And so that's the same, that's the same issue with these, with the other products out there on the market. You can edit the transaction, you can change the cost basis, you can change the currency, you can change the date, you can change.
The time you can change everything about it, which again, as you just said, you can't just change the ones and zeros, it doesn't work that way.
Janna Scott (18:25.358)
So the way I built it, it was took a lot of work. I went and literally had to leave the country at some times. I had to go and connect to exchanges into blockchains that are not available in the US. I ran test data through it. I we got it pulled from an API so we could see exactly how things would come over, so we can set the rules for the categorization so that you do not get the option to to c to re-categorize something and potentially do it wrong.
So, which also allows us, if if there's an audit and you use our product, I can go to the IRS and I can say, this nothing was altered. Here's the back-end support data, here's the front-end support data. There was no alter nothing was altered. It is exactly how it shows up on the blockchain. It's just it's just calculated and consolidated. So
And and we're building in a lot of additional support that allows you to really it is not just a tax software, it's for tax strategy. Because we will give you the opportunity to say, listen, you have 10 different wallets. One holds this much in Bitcoin with this much, this much. What are you gonna sell? Well, listen, we give you the strategy because we while these products they tell you there's so much you owe, this is how much you you don't owe, this these are your losses.
They don't give you the yes, they tell you about tax loss harvesting and things like that. But what are they really going to tell you? We will ask the question we'll say, do you have any capital losses from stock sales or from real estate sales? Or do you have any capital gains? Because that's what you should determine your accounting method on that you're using for your crypto. Do you want to show losses, or are you do you have the ability to show gains that are offset by other losses? Because you have limitations on your losses. Don't waste your losses, right? We will give you the option.
To say, listen, I want to sell a Bitcoin. And we'll say, okay, this is your damage if you sell the Bitcoin, but please, it would even be better if you sell half a Bitcoin from this wallet, a third from this, and and and a fourth from this, and the rest from this, right? Because
Janna Scott (20:29.268)
We have your bases and we can calculate it. We can say if you do it this way, you're gonna zero out. If you wanna show losses, sell it from here. If you wanna show gains, sell it from there. Right? We'll give you the option. So it is more about the tax strategy without without
Leading you to temptation of tax fraud, right? Without you having to go in and manipulate your own data because you have some insane capital gain event. And the 1099 DAs, absolutely horrendous. They don't help you in any way, shape, or form. You know, they just create more of a panic because they don't calculate the basis at all.
Joe Massa (21:09.236)
Yeah, and I can imagine having the ability to manually audit or edit things. Cause again, like QuickBooks, you can audit and edit what you want to make it sort of fit the box and balance it yourself. But I love that you're pulling directly from the blockchain because A, it eliminates the enticement of wanting to do fraud. But there probably is a lot of people out there. You mentioned earlier, we don't go into this wanting to commit fraud. Well, some people probably do. And to have the ability to go do that.
Janna Scott (21:18.807)
Mm-hmm.
Janna Scott (21:34.456)
Boy.
Joe Massa (21:37.636)
Is a big liability for people that are on the up and up in these exchanges and these IRS agents who gotta go in and audit these people and say, you know, maybe I made a mistake unwillingly. But there's a lot of people out there that probably want to commit fraud, that do it every day, every year. So I love that you've sort of built a way that they can't, but also more as a safety net for people like me who wouldn't intentionally do that. But it's really easy, you know, when you get an error on your QuickBooks and it's like,
Hey, these two balances don't add up or this account doesn't match this account. I just all just recategorize this. Now now it's all green check marks. I'm happy now it works. But I I didn't I just was trying to make it easier on me. But really what I did is I I kind of played the system. So I love that you're building something that is secure, but also as a protector for people like me who are a bit naive and and silly in this would make mistakes.
Janna Scott (22:09.72)
Doing a test of journalism and whoops. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Janna Scott (22:22.124)
Yeah. Yeah.
Janna Scott (22:32.321)
No, there's there's you know, there's a lot of legal ways to mitigate your taxes and implement strategies that, you know, do not involve fraud or evasion, you know, and that's in the crypto world as well. So, you know, we want to ensure that people are protected because just just because the IRS and then something just passed anyways where the IRS is getting a lot more more people again, you know, but
Based on on 2023 data already showed that the IRS had missed out approximately on $147 billion in capital gains tax just from crypto alone. They're gonna want it eventually. You know what I mean? It they're not just gonna let it go. And so would you rather overpay, or would you would you rather, you know, pay exactly what you need to pay without having to
deal with the penalties, the interest and the headache of an audit. I mean audits are full of headaches. It's and you know, my clients freak out when they get a refund letter from the IRS. They say, my God, I got a letter from the IRS. It's a refund. Be happy. It's nothing bad. You know? And and when these letters go out, there's gonna be a panic. And how are these products supposed to justify their calculations, their math, their features in an audit? They can't.
Joe Massa (23:42.323)
Yeah.
Janna Scott (23:57.804)
Because there's no well they they they just can't them the the math is wrong, period, right? And but also
Joe Massa (24:00.796)
Yes.
Janna Scott (24:07.65)
The features alone disqualify it, right? The features that you can edit transactions that were that were said to be on the blockchain, that immediately will will eliminate it from being used in an audit. And we're we have built it in a way that we can justify it and we can have the audit trail that says nothing was ever manipulated, nothing was left out, nothing was deleted, nothing, no category was changed. This is how it looks on the blockchain.
Joe Massa (24:34.301)
Which I would imagine also protects you as the entity giving these calculations, because you can say, look, it it's in black and white. It it is what it is. I we we didn't change anything. But but you're right, you know, the IRS is not just gonna forget that they want money. I mean, the come on, let's be real. So if all of a sudden they they backlog a couple of years and realize they left all this potential cat you know, tax money on the table, they're gonna come hunting for it somehow. And if you're the person that didn't pay a big chunk of that,
Do you wanna get that bill in the mail that says, Hey, by the way, you forgot this two hundred thousand dollars you owed us? That's a really big, you know, kick in the gut.
Janna Scott (25:11.534)
Well the other issue is this. If the IRS comes, they will come and they will do their calculations. What's if they're wrong? What's if you know they're wrong? Now you have to prove it to them. How do you prove it with products that are ineligible to be used in an audit? How how how do you how do you prove it, right?
Joe Massa (25:27.865)
Unless you're an expert you can't. Yeah.
Janna Scott (25:29.834)
No, you can't. And and so with what we've built and we've built in, you know, like an audit audit protection area that that that people can use us for, you know, we can go and sit there in front of the IRS and we can show the math. I can sit there like in you know, fifth grade math and sh show my show my work. So
Because I've done it manually too. I can sit in front of them manually and do the math if I wanted to. No, it's gonna take me a while and and you know, they're not gonna like sitting there and wa watching me, but I c I can if I wanted to. So, and that's the difference, you know, between between us and and the other products. And like I said, I I offered all of them. I sent all of them, emails through LinkedIn and what everything, and I said
Here, you can have it for free. We figured out what's wrong. And one of the products decided to speak to us and they just turned around and basically tried to sell us the product. So that wasn't really helpful because, you know, that wasn't what the call was supposed to be about. But my biggest concern is really, you know, again, who am I? You know, I'm small, people don't know me. I can I can I can say whatever I want to say. And so I tell the people like I told, you know, told you, go into 2022 if you used any of the products and double check.
Right? If 2022 doesn't look the way it used to anymore, then there you go. Or my other issue is too, if you look at one of the top exchanges in the country, in the world, basically, they have their partners and shareholders in two of the major, top major crypto tax products. However, and this is the fun part, and this is a real life example. I actually just showed this to my team again. 2024, for example. I go in.
And the exchange tells me you have $99 worth of gains this year. It's my test wallet. I don't do much to it. I just run like you know 50 to 70 transactions through it just to keep the data flow going and keep updating myself. But it says you have $99 of gains. I say, great. here, use the two products that we're shareholders in and go use them for your taxes. So I go, okay, do that. I'm gonna do my OAuth 2, I'm gonna connect it to the first product and the second product.
Janna Scott (27:36.192)
You would assume because they're shareholders, they're part owners, that the data matches, right? When I pull in the same data that just told me $99 of gains. One tells me I have $500 and something doll losses. The other one tells me I have $2,990 of gains. Same set of data, same ownership, multi-billion dollar products. How am I getting three different answers?
These the exchange is gonna send the ten ninety nine with the ninety nine dollars. The one product, yay, I have five hundred something dollars in losses, and the other product would go, Hey, you have almost three thousand dollars in gains. But who is gonna hold them accountable?
Joe Massa (28:21.595)
Unfortunately they're gonna hold you accountable and you're sort of at the mercy of whatever information you were given, which is really, really a shame because again, you know, it's and again for for sort of a comparison, it's it's like you know, it's almost like Big Pharma where they they tell you, you know, this horrible disease is coming out, but they're also the only ones with the the solution, right? If you're if you're the crypto company that is the has the two biggest tax products and those are the ones they're giving you, but they're both wrong.
Janna Scott (28:31.597)
What?
Janna Scott (28:42.412)
Yeah, exactly.
Joe Massa (28:50.373)
Like, how do you get out of that vicious cycle? Well, either you're an expert like Yana and do this are yourself, or you go to someone like Yana who can give you the tools for that. What I really love what you said earlier about defy tax and and sort of your strategy with people that work with you is if like I I had multiple wallets and wanted to sell one Bitcoin, your team also will give us the strategy to sell in the right sort of order or from the right, you know.
places to to have the least tax risk.
Janna Scott (29:18.466)
Yeah, we're working on the implementation of our what if analysis. Yeah. So that's the next feature that's coming. So it's basically right, if you have you you have you have Bitcoin in multiple multiple wallets, multiple exchanges, wherever you have it sitting, if they're connected to DeFi tax, then and you say, Hey, I want to sell a Bitcoin because I need some cash, right? We'll tell you and we'll ask some more questions. It's kind of a question game. It's like, look, do you have other losses? Do you other gains? Would you rather, you know, where do you want to be at? And then we'll say, look, if you
Joe Massa (29:24.999)
That's awesome.
Janna Scott (29:48.402)
want more law if you need more losses, here you go. Sell it from here, here, here. That's the least damage you can do. Or if you need if you if you have losses and you can use the losses to offset games, hey, sell from here, here, here and save the losses from the other transaction for another day. You know
It's and ultimately like what I love most about about our product, that's my favorite part, is the reports page. Because you know if you go to any of these other products, in order to change and see all the different accounting methods and what's most beneficial to you, you have to go into settings, there's 20 million steps to change it, it recalculates everything. You actually can't go by token level, you can't if you have a Coinbase account, for example, and you have Ethereum and Matic and Solana and and Bitcoin in there, you can actually
Pick the accounting method based on your token. You don't have, because you don't have to be the IRS actually said don't do an overall anymore, right? It has to be by by wallet level. And so we're going even deeper.
And but we show you everything all at once. We don't say like you don't have to go through ten steps. We want you to understand exactly what you're doing. Again, this is not just about taxes, this is about strategy. It's like understand. That's what I do with my clients in my tax room. I say, I want you to understand your own finances. You I want you to understand it better than me, because you're the one who has to make the decision to live with it. So let's give you the tools so you're able to make the dis right decisions for your situation.
Joe Massa (31:17.04)
And I think that's so powerful that you're providing this education because again, you're right, we have to empower ourselves to truly understand it. And and I might not ever understand it to your level. It's not what I do. So it's nice though to have somebody kind of hold my hand and say, This is why we're doing it this way. So it makes sense. So at least I can connect the dots in my brain and go, Okay, this makes sense. And I would imagine that that sort of strategy with your company
builds a lot of trust, not only for your client base, but other bigger companies when they see you and they see what you're doing, that has to build a level of trust in a notoriously sort of black box world where we never know what's going on behind closed doors. They just tell you this is the this is the answer and we just have to accept that. So I commend you on on really educating us because that's something that's been, you know, vastly lacking in this community.
Janna Scott (32:10.2)
My COO makes fun of me. He always says that I live in La La Land. because, you know, my the reason I built this wasn't because I wanted to build the software. It wasn't because I was that interested in crypto, right? It was because I saw a problem that nobody wanted to fix while the big companies were benefiting from it. And the ultimate victims at the end of the day are going to be the taxpayers, the users, right? And
I just, you know, I wish that that that would be enough. Again, Lala Land, right? I wish, I wish wanting to do the right thing was would be enough, right? And I hope that eventually people will understand that that just because, you know.
A company that that has the backing of who knows multi-billion dollar comp businesses doesn't mean that they're right. Doesn't mean that they have the best people. Well, they could have they could afford the best people, but could you imagine these products trying to backtrack and completely fix the algorithms and say, whoops, we've done this wrong for the last 10 years, and all of you guys have filed wrong. Could you imagine? That's not gonna happen, right? So
Unfortunately, the only option I have is build something that works and hope that people eventually when shit hits the fan, meaning the IRS picks up the audits again, you know, will will come and see and and use us for their own protection.
Joe Massa (33:42.992)
Yeah, and really you've sort of found the niche that I think a lot of bigger brands and companies have overlooked. And you're right, there's no way, because of the ramifications of what would happen if they went back and said, we got to scrap everything we did for the last decade. There's absolutely no way they're going to put that egg on their face. Instead, what you've really done is is quite brilliant. You solved a a s a problem that really was kind of being swept under the rug, but you've sort of now emerged as this leader in a space, sort of like a
You know, the the small tree coming up in the thicket of the bigger redwoods, but you're really gonna surpass them because you're doing things the right way. So if somebody's interested in learning more about Defy Tax and and using your services, how can we find you and get involved with this and protect ourselves?
Janna Scott (34:15.563)
Yeah.
Janna Scott (34:30.648)
Well we do have we have LinkedIn, we have, you know, Instagram, we have the social media channels, but you can also go to defy tax.us and and and check us out. we are we're working with some colleges and universities coming here in the future. So we really want to be able to get, you know, more I work closely with a few high schools here in Florida because I want to get financial literacy and just knowledge out in general, not just in the crypto world, but i you know over
overall knowledge and I think we we're we're all over online. At least my marketing team is. I'm not a fan of it. I have I have a guy for that.
Joe Massa (35:12.239)
Yeah. No, that's great. Again, guys, that's defy tax.us, and that's D E F I. Defy tax.us. I'll make sure to post the links on that. But what's what's sort of on the horizon for you guys? Any big updates rolling out? Obviously, you've talked about sort of that tax strategy. this is just really exciting for me. I I'm a I'm a big crypto fan myself, and I work with a lot of other crypto groups. So hearing that there's a tax
Janna Scott (35:18.498)
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Joe Massa (35:39.575)
strategy that we can utilize is something that I'm oddly excited about considering at the beginning of the conversation crypto and taxes aren't usually water cooler talks. So what's on what's on the horizon for DeFi tax that we can look forward to?
Janna Scott (35:55.916)
Well, yeah, so we're building out the what if strategies and we're gonna build on consistently because you know, I mean that's what I do in my in my day job, right? Working with taxes and strategies. I I like it. See I get excited about taxes. I know a lot of people's eyes glaze over when I start talking, but but I love it. It it makes sense to me, it's logical. and so ultimately
We're gonna build out the strategy part a lot more. We're building on a bookkeeping platform, we're building on a f CPA and financial advisor platform, hopefully that that will help financial advisors to be more comfortable with their clients and crypto as well. So those are a few things to look forward to.
Joe Massa (36:36.645)
Very exciting. Yeah, I'm really excited to see where the platform goes and to share this. And honestly, I I definitely feel like this is something I would want to try because I don't want to get a big nasty IRS letter in the mail. And I've had that happen before, not for crypto, but just in general. You know, and it's not fun. You don't want to be in the IRS's pocket, guys. So make sure you're protecting yourself.
Janna Scott (36:55.416)
No, and the and the ten ninety nine's are putting everybody on the map.
Right. The ten ninety nines are making it so that you really can't do anything. And like I said, the John Doe letters itself. I mean, people don't really haven't paid attention to those. They've gone out since twenty twenty one. The Department of Justice gave permission to the IRS to send letters to any KYC exchange. And that also means those third parties that are that you use to purchase on MetaMask, right? Well, MetaMask is, you know, not centralized and you would think it's anonymous, right? But if you have to buy it somehow and
If you use Moonpay, Moonpay gets a gives out has KYC, gives out 1099. You are on their map. And the IRS, I think it was mid to late mid mid-2025, they received their third round of responses to those John Doe letters, meaning those exchanges and products gave the IRS the names and details of the people who have used their products. So it doesn't matter. Again, I tell people all the time, it doesn't matter if you have it now on a ledger, if it's in your safety, the safety deposit.
box at the bank. Doesn't matter. They know you have it. So that's you know.
Joe Massa (38:04.259)
And and be be smart about it.
You protect yourself, guys. No one's gonna do that for you. The the bigger platforms, they don't care if they get it right or wrong. They're still making their money off every transaction and supporting these big tax platforms that supposedly are the the best in class. Now we're hearing today from Yana that they're not. So again, always talk to your own tax professionals, make sure you're doing it right, but but do the research and go to places like Defy Tax that give you some of this education for free because they're teaching you. They want
You to be smarter at this and and more importantly to protect yourself. So check out defy tax.us. Get in touch with Yana on LinkedIn and Instagram. Make sure that you're learning so that you don't get sort of sucker punched late in the game or years down the line. Because again, ignorance is not bliss, and it's not an excuse to defraud the government or the tax system just because, well, I didn't know that's usually not going to last in court. So yeah, this has been really, really insightful.
Janna Scott (39:02.296)
Doesn't work. It doesn't work unfortunately.
Joe Massa (39:05.767)
I would love to get an update down the line on what to five tax once you roll out some of these new features. again, I'll share all this information when this episode goes live. But really, really great stuff. I appreciate you sharing all this on the measuring post.
Janna Scott (39:19.16)
Amazing. I appreciate I appreciate you listening to me, Rand. I tend to get a little carried away just because, you know, this has been something I've been working on for four years now and it's
Joe Massa (39:31.759)
Yeah, and I feel like this is really just about to blow up even further to the next level, especially with crypto being such a hot button topic. And we all know the US dollar is faltering. This is going to be the future of money, so we better start doing it right and protecting ourselves. Otherwise, a lot of us are going to be in a big world of hurt. So defy tax.us, check them out, get in touch with Yana. And and again, thank you so much for your time today in in educating me and everyone listening to this, because I think a lot of us are in this same sort of situation.
Janna Scott (39:39.896)
Yeah.
Joe Massa (40:01.693)
cycle of unknowing what what's gonna come. So really valuable information and can't wait to learn more along the way. So again, Giannis Scott, CEO, co-founder, DeFi Tax. Thank you for your time on the measuring post.
Janna Scott (40:14.136)
Thank you, Joe.