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Same ticker, different token: keeping look-alike Solana tokens apart in a FIFO trade log (record-keeping only)

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

Nah is not affiliated with Phantom, Jupiter or Solana. Sources checked 21 October 2026.

On Solana, anyone can launch a token with the same name, symbol and logo as another one. If your trade log identifies tokens only by ticker, two different coins can quietly share one FIFO pool, and nothing in the sheet looks broken. Here's how that happens and how to label rows so it can't.

Why the ticker isn't enough

Solana's documentation says that "Tokens on Solana are uniquely identified by the address of a Mint Account" (solana.com/docs/tokens). Jupiter's Token API docs make the same point from the other side: "a symbol such as USDC or JUP can be claimed by any mint", so you should "store and look tokens up by mint, never by symbol" (developers.jup.ag/docs/tokens).

How the workbook groups tokens

In the Nah Crypto Tax Tracker workbook, FIFO matches each Sell against earlier Buys with the same Token text. Upper and lower case and leading or trailing spaces are ignored. We tested this: rows labelled "Bonk ", "BONK" and "bonk" were treated as one token, and the holdings line showed a single BONK.

Handy for typos, but two different mints both typed as "MOON" become one pool.

A worked EXAMPLE

You buy the real MOON, and the next day you buy a look-alike MOON by mistake. You sell the look-alike in November and the real one in February. All numbers are EXAMPLE values; the fee is in fiat.

Date Type Token Qty Price Fee
2025-10-01 Buy MOON 10 30.00 0.50
2025-10-02 Buy MOON (look-alike) 50,000 0.001 0.20
2025-11-05 Sell MOON (look-alike) 50,000 0.0001 0.10
2026-02-10 Sell MOON 10 20.00 0.50

Both labelled "MOON". FIFO takes the oldest units first, so the November sale of the look-alike uses up the 10 real MOON plus 49,990 look-alike units. The workbook shows a cost of 350.69 against proceeds of 4.90, a realized result of −345.79 in 2025. The February sale of the real MOON is then matched against the last 10 look-alike units (cost 0.01), giving +199.49 in 2026.

Labelled "MOON-A1B2" and "MOON-Z9Y8". Each sale finds its own lot. The look-alike shows −45.30 in 2025 (cost 50.20) and the real MOON shows −101.00 in 2026 (cost 300.50).

The all-time total is −146.30 either way, but the per-year Summary differs: −345.79 / +199.49 versus −45.30 / −101.00. Every row in the Check column says OK in both versions. The OVERSOLD flag only fires when a Sell exceeds the earlier Buys of that label, and a merged pool has plenty of units. So the sheet cannot warn you; the labels have to.

A labelling convention that works

  1. Find the mint address. In Phantom, open the token's page, scroll to About (mobile) or Info (extension) and copy the "Contract address or Mint" field. Phantom notes that this address "helps you distinguish between tokens with the same name or symbol" (help.phantom.com).
  2. Make the Token label unique. Use the ticker plus the first four characters of the mint, e.g. MOON-A1B2. Use it on every row of that token, all year.
  3. Put the full mint in Notes (H) on the first row of each label, and the transaction signature in Tx hash (G) on every row.
  4. Leave the big names alone. SOL and USDC can stay as plain "SOL" and "USDC", as long as you never type those labels for anything else.

Swaps stay two rows: a Sell of what you gave and a Buy of what you got, with the same signature in G. For fees: enter the combined fee once per swap, on the token's row, in fiat, and do it the same way all year.

Unsolicited look-alikes in your wallet

Look-alikes also arrive unasked: Phantom's help center says "anyone can send tokens or collectibles to your wallet without your permission" and that an unfamiliar asset is "usually spam" (help.phantom.com). Airdrops are not calculated automatically: you can log them manually as a Buy row at a value you choose (e.g. 0 or fair value; ask an advisor which), as explained in the guide. If you add one, give it its own mint-suffixed label.

Checklist

How any of these rows is treated for tax purposes is a question for a tax professional.

Related guides

A ready-made option

If you'd rather not build this yourself, the Nah Crypto Tax Tracker is an .xlsx plus a PDF guide with plain formulas and no macros: Buy/Sell rows, Tx hash in G, Notes in H, FIFO by date then row order, an OVERSOLD flag and a per-year Summary. FIFO only; not tailored to any country's tax rules. 29 USDC one-time: Nah Crypto Tax Tracker. Related: own-wallet transfers and reconciling Phantom history. Not tax advice.