How to Do TON and Tonkeeper Crypto Taxes: Jettons, Mini Apps and Airdrops

Overview

Most people with a TON wallet did not set out to buy crypto. They tapped a Telegram game for a few weeks, were told to connect a wallet, and received a token. Then another game, another token. A year later the wallet holds a dozen jettons, some worth something, most worth nothing, and the question of what any of it means for tax has never come up.

TON is unusual in that the typical history is mostly receipts: airdrops, game rewards, referral bonuses, and tokens sent by projects as advertising. The tax questions are therefore mostly about income — what counted as income when it arrived, at what value, and what was simply junk. This article covers importing a Tonkeeper or other TON wallet, how jettons and airdrops are read, and how to clean the record.

Importing a TON Address

A TON wallet is a single address. Tonkeeper shows it on the Receive screen, and it will start with UQ or EQ — two encodings of the same account, and either works. Copy it and import it. There is no xpub, no address rotation, and no network list: TON is one network, so Tonkeeper, Ledger, Trust Wallet or any other TON wallet imports the same way.

CryptoTaxBridge reads the address's full history from TON's public data: TON transfers in and out, jetton transfers, swaps, NFT movements, and the small fees on each. Where a wallet has more than one version — Tonkeeper can hold a v4 and a v5 wallet behind the same phrase — each version is a different address with its own history, and each needs its own import.

Import a TON address

Jettons

Jettons are TON's tokens, the equivalent of ERC-20 on Ethereum. Notcoin, DOGS, Hamster Kombat's token, USDT on TON — all jettons. For tax they are cryptoassets like any other: buying one is an acquisition, selling or swapping one is a disposal, and receiving one for free is the interesting case covered below.

One TON-specific detail: a jetton's name is free text set by whoever created it, and spam projects use the name itself as an advertisement. A real history can contain a "token" whose name is a website address and a promise. CryptoTaxBridge shows these by their contract address instead of the advertising name, so they are easy to spot in review.

Airdrops and Game Rewards Are Usually Income

This is the heart of a TON tax record.

When a game or project sends you a token because you played, clicked, referred friends or held something, you have received an asset. The general position is that it is income at its market value on the day it arrives, and that value then becomes the token's cost basis. The IRS treats an airdrop as ordinary income when received. HMRC draws a line: an airdrop received in return for doing something — completing tasks, playing, referring — is income, while one received for nothing at all, outside any trade, is not income on receipt but is still a disposal when later sold.

Telegram mini-app rewards almost always involve doing something, so expect them to be income in most readings.

The practical difficulty is the value. Many of these tokens have no market at all on the day they arrive; the token launches on an exchange days or weeks later, or never. Where there was genuinely no price, there was no value to recognise as income, and the cost basis is zero — which means the full proceeds are a gain if you later sell. Where a price did exist, the import values the receipt on that date. During review, the question to ask of each airdrop is simply: was this thing tradeable when it landed?

Review airdrop income

Swaps, Staking and NFTs

Tonkeeper's built-in swap routes through TON decentralised exchanges. A swap is a disposal of the asset you gave and an acquisition of the one you received, at that day's values — exchanging one cryptoasset for another is a disposal under HMRC's guidance and the IRS treats it the same way. It imports as an exchange, with the fee attached.

Staking TON through a liquid staking service gives you a staking token in return for your TON. Whether that exchange is itself a disposal is not settled everywhere; the cautious reading is that it is, since you gave up one asset and received a different one. The rewards that accrue are income in the usual way. Direct staking that locks TON without issuing a token is not a disposal.

NFTs on TON — including Telegram usernames and collectible gifts — are assets. Selling one is a disposal; buying one is an acquisition at what you paid plus the fee.

Fees on TON

Every action on TON costs a small amount of TON, and some actions produce several tiny fee movements at once. A busy wallet has many fee-only lines of a fraction of a TON each. They are real: each is a small disposal of TON and an allowable cost of the transaction it paid for, and over a year of game claims they add up. The import records them. Whether network fees are deductible covers the general principle.

One oddity worth knowing: TON sometimes refunds part of a fee you overpaid, which appears as a tiny amount of TON arriving. Treat it as your own TON coming back, not as income.

What to Remove

A TON wallet receives more junk than most. Spam jettons, dust, "you have won" tokens that exist to make you visit a site. None of it is income: an unsolicited token with no market is worth nothing when it arrives. The sensible thing is to delete it from the record, and keep anything you went on to sell.

CryptoTaxBridge deliberately does not filter these automatically, because automated spam detection removes real transactions often enough to be dangerous. Every imported transaction can be reviewed, deleted and restored. A first TON import deserves a careful pass; after that each sync only adds what is new.

Transfers From Exchanges

TON bought on an exchange and withdrawn to Tonkeeper is a transfer, not a disposal, but only when both ends are imported. Connect the exchange alongside the wallet and the withdrawal matches the arrival. How wallet transfers are treated covers the principle.

A TON Import Checklist

Before generating a report, confirm:

every TON address you have used is imported, including each wallet version;
airdrops and game rewards appear as income where a price existed at receipt;
tokens with no market at receipt are kept with a zero cost basis, not deleted, if you later sold them;
swaps appear as exchanges of one asset for another;
NFT sales appear as disposals;
fee lines are present, and refunds are not counted as income;
the exchanges you bought TON from are connected;
spam jettons have been reviewed and removed.

Conclusion

A TON wallet is mostly a record of things arriving. Importing it is easy — one address, complete history. Reading it is the work: which receipts were income, what they were worth on the day, and which were noise. Get the airdrops right and the rest is a short list of swaps and fees.

Connect your wallets

Official Resources

This article provides general information and is not tax advice. Wallet software changes; where this article and your wallet's own documentation disagree, the wallet is right.