Oyster Pearl (PRL) Exit scam. Mark as lost?

[bec_fullman]

I traded PRL on Kucoin back a few years ago and the project got exit scammed by the founder. I never withdrew my PRL from Kucoin so I guess they de-listed it and the coins disappeared into the void. I can’t find a balance on Kucoin or the token trading any exchange at all. So I’m pretty sure the project is abandoned and essentially went to $0

How do I account for this in Koinly? At the moment it thinks I still have the tokens.

My buy trades from Kucoin are all imported. So do I just create a withdrawal and mark it as lost on the date the exit scammed happened?

I also received a related airdrop which was the token SHL - This is worth nothing anymore too and disappeared along with PRL. Do I create a lost withdrawal for that one too?

[bec_fullman]

Update: I just read somewhere that years later Kucoin swapped all PRL tokens that were left on their exchange for OPQ. This makes sense because I received OPQ tokens in 2020 but wasn’t sure where they came from. The amount of OPQ I received matches the amount of PRL I bought.

I sold the OPQ recently because I thought it was just a random airdrop.

Now the question is… do I just create a trade for PRL to OPQ on the date I received the OPQ?

Or should I mark the PRL as lost on the date of the hack, and then treat OPQ as a separate airdrop?

The second option is way more tax advantageous for me because it realizes a loss in a year that has gains to offset. But would like to know why is the correct way to do it. Cheers!

[bec_fullman]

Update #2: It looks like PRL actually hard forked to OPQ on November 9th 2018. So I have decided to mark both my original PRL and SHL as lost on November 9th 2018. Then I created a Fork deposit of OPQ on the same date (adjusted to $0 cost basis).

As far as I know, a hard fork doesn’t trigger Income in Australia. The new asset OPQ just gets a $0 cost basis and starts it’s own 12 month countdown for the 50% reduced CGT rate.

It’s not treated as a “token swap” because the original tokens were not swapped/burned for OPQ. In a hard fork, usually the original asset PRL still exists (like what happened with ETH and ETC) and I would still retain ownership of it. But in this case I think my PRL was kept by Kucoin since I didn’t withdraw it. Hence why I have treated it as lost and will claim capital losses.

The OPQ I received in Kucoin in 2020 was actually a token swap from OPQ to OPCT. Though Koinly hasn’t updated the ticker so I will just soft delete this transaction for now.

I hope that’s all correct. Please feel free to tell me I’m wrong.