Estonian programmer Jaan Tallinn, who participated in the creation of the Skype Internet communication program, said that he keeps most of his personal assets in cryptocurrency.
After the purchase of Skype by eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion, Tallinn did not participate in new businesses and decided to try himself as an investor. One of these investments was the British machine learning company Faculty AI, in which Tallinn has invested digital assets at least twice.
According to Fortune, in January 2018, he transferred Faculty 350 ethers (ETH) worth $434,000 then and $160,000 now, and in March 2020, another 50 bitcoins worth $316,000. Since then, the amount of the last investment has grown to more than $810,000.
Tallinn explained that it concentrated the majority of its assets in cryptocurrency, so it was easier for it to invest in this way. Converting a digital currency to a traditional one would require paying capital gains tax, which would reduce the transfer amount.
Subsequently, the chosen calculation model began to present difficulties for the Faculty AI itself, since traditional accounting mechanisms are still poorly adapted for working with cryptocurrencies. "Our accountants had to look for those who already had experience with cryptocurrencies and who knew how to keep their accounting records," said mark Warner, founder and CEO of Faculty.
The company sold $144,000 worth of ETH coins in 2019-2020, and does not prefer to keep most of the cryptocurrency received from Tallinn, according to financial statements.