How to log worthless or rugged memecoins in a trade spreadsheet (record-keeping only)

Not tax advice. All numbers, tokens and signatures below are EXAMPLE data. This guide covers record-keeping only. Whether or how any of this counts for tax where you live is a question for a tax professional.

Nah is not affiliated with Phantom, Solscan or Solana. Crypto assets are volatile and you can lose some or all of your money. Sources checked 21 October 2026.

Most memecoin histories end with a few tokens near zero. That's where trade logs usually go wrong: people delete the token or invent a sale to make it disappear. The rule is simple: the sheet records what actually happened on-chain, nothing more. There are two cases.

Case 1: You actually sold, even for almost nothing

If a swap out of the token went through, it's a real trade. Log a Sell row at the real proceeds, however small.

Date	Type	Token	Qty	Price	Fee	Tx hash	Notes
2025-03-01	Buy	RUGX	1,000,000	0.00005	0.50	sigA…	bought on pump.fun
2025-03-04	Sell	RUGX	1,000,000	0.0000003	0.20	sigB…	sold after liquidity was pulled

In the workbook:

Cost of the Buy: 1,000,000 × 0.00005 + 0.50 = 50.50.
Proceeds of the Sell: 1,000,000 × 0.0000003 − 0.20 = 0.10.
Result: FIFO matches the Sell against the 50.50 lot. Realized P/L shows −50.40, and so does the 2025 line of the per-year Summary.
Holding: RUGX's holding drops to 0.

Get the details right:

Price: use the real price from the swap, in the same fiat currency as the rest of your sheet. Don't round it to zero.
Fee: enter the combined fee once per swap, on the token's row, in fiat, and do it the same way all year.
SOL received: if the swap paid you in SOL, log a Buy of SOL too. A swap is a Sell row plus a Buy row.
Signature: put it in Tx hash (column G). Phantom's help says each Solana transaction has a unique identifier called a signature, which you can open from History via "View on Solscan" (Phantom help).

Case 2: The token can't be sold

Sometimes there's no trade to log. Phantom notes that "some tokens are designed so they can be bought but not sold" (Phantom help: spam tokens). It also says that when a token is frozen on Solana, "you cannot send, swap, or sell it", and that this "is controlled by the token creator, not Phantom" (Phantom help: frozen tokens).

Then:

Don't add a Sell row. A sale that never happened breaks the match with the chain.
Leave the Buy open. The workbook can't calculate a token you haven't sold. The lot stays in the Summary holdings table at its quantity and remaining cost.
Write the status in Notes (column H) on the Buy row: what happened, the date, and where the evidence is. For example: can't sell since 2025-04-10; no DEX route; screenshot in /evidence/DEADX.
Keep the evidence outside the sheet: the Buy signature (column G), an explorer link to the token page, and a dated screenshot of the failed swap or empty pool.

Example: a Buy of 200,000 DEADX at 0.0002 with a 0.40 fee stays open. Summary shows 200,000 DEADX with a remaining cost of 40.40. If you enter 0 as the current price (Summary column D), Unrealized P/L shows −40.40. That's a view of today's value, not a realized result, and the per-year Summary doesn't change.

Don't delete the token from your records

Phantom may hide a token automatically. The token can show a warning, sit in your hidden list, or be "removed from view entirely" (Phantom help). Hiding it in the wallet is fine. Deleting its rows from your log isn't, because the Buy really happened. Explorers can still show tokens that Phantom hides or filters (Phantom help).

For raw data, Solscan exports CSVs from the Transfers, DeFi Activities and Balance Changes tabs. Each export returns only the latest 1,000 records, so filter by date first (Solscan). For a step-by-step export in date slices, see how to export Solana DEX history to CSV.

Watch the OVERSOLD flag

A "cleanup" Sell bigger than what you bought breaks the log. Say you log a sale of 250,000 DEADX, but your Buy rows only add up to 200,000. The workbook flags that row OVERSOLD in the Check column. It doesn't calculate a cost basis or realized P/L for the row, and Summary's "Rows needing attention" counter goes up by one. The DEADX holding shows −50,000. The usual cause is a missing Buy or an invented Sell, so fix the row instead of ignoring the flag.

Checklist

Real sale → Sell row at the real proceeds, signature in G.
Can't sell → no Sell row; the Buy stays open; status, date and evidence go in H.
Every row in column M says OK.
How any of it is treated is a question for a tax professional.

Related guides

A ready-made option

If you'd rather not build the sheet yourself, the Nah Crypto Tax Tracker is an .xlsx plus a PDF guide with plain formulas and no macros. It has Buy/Sell rows, Tx hash in G, Notes in H, FIFO by date, an OVERSOLD flag and a per-year Summary. The workbook accepts only Buy and Sell rows; transfers and staking can only be noted in the Notes column and are not calculated. FIFO only; not tailored to any country's tax rules. 29 USDC one-time: Nah Crypto Tax Tracker. Not tax advice.