Saim Akif, CPA — built Chainblock to fix what general-practice CPAs got wrong about crypto.
Chainblock Financial is not a traditional CPA firm that bolted on a crypto practice. It was built from first principles around the reality that blockchain data is the authoritative record — and that the only way to produce a defensible return is to start from the chain and work forward, not backward from an exchange CSV.
How Saim Got Into Crypto Tax
Saim Akif started working in crypto taxation in 2016, before the first IRS notice on the subject had been widely read by the accounting profession. His entry point was a client with three exchanges, a hardware wallet, and a CPA who had never heard of a 1099-K. Saim spent two weeks reconstructing the transaction history from blockchain explorers and exchange APIs, filed a return with proper Form 8949 line items, and realized that almost everything the standard accounting workflow assumed about securities — that a third party held the basis records, that the year-end statement was trustworthy, that transfers were just administrative movements — was wrong for crypto.
That engagement became the template for Chainblock. The firm is built around the insight that crypto tax done correctly requires a workflow that starts from on-chain data, reconciles against exchange records, applies the applicable IRS guidance to each transaction type, and produces documentation that can survive an audit. Anything short of that is an estimate, and the IRS does not grade on a curve.
Credentials and Affiliations
Saim holds the CPA designation, the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) designation, and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) certification. He is a partner at Akif CPA, a full-service CPA practice headquartered in Houston, Texas. Chainblock Financial operates as the crypto-specialized division of that practice, handling all digital asset engagements.
Saim has been recognized by the IRS as a practitioner with expertise in digital asset taxation, has published extensively on crypto tax topics, and maintains an active YouTube channel where he breaks down IRS guidance for crypto holders in plain English. His content has been cited in crypto media, legal commentary, and by other CPA practices seeking to understand the evolving rule set.
What Makes Chainblock Different
The core differentiation is chain-first reconciliation. Most crypto tax software — and most CPAs who use it — builds a transaction history from exchange CSV imports and treats the exchange record as authoritative. The problem is that exchanges are not authoritative. They see only the transactions that occurred on their platform. Everything that happened on-chain between exchanges — every transfer, every DeFi interaction, every bridge — is invisible to the exchange record. When the exchange CSV and the blockchain disagree, the blockchain is right.
Chainblock builds every engagement from the chain data outward. We pull on-chain history from every wallet address the client has ever used, reconcile it against exchange records, and use the reconciled data — not the exchange summary — as the basis for every Form 8949 line item. This is the only approach that produces a return that will survive an IRS request for supporting documentation, because the supporting documentation exists at the chain level and we have it.
Where Saim Writes and Speaks
Saim publishes weekly commentary on crypto tax developments via LinkedIn, responds to practitioner questions on Reddit’s r/CryptoTax community, and maintains an active presence in several crypto Discord servers where practitioners and investors discuss IRS guidance. His YouTube channel (@saim.cryptocpa) covers IRS rule changes, walkthrough tutorials, and year-end planning in plain English without the marketing.
He speaks periodically at Texas Society of CPAs events and contributes to continuing education materials on digital asset taxation for accounting professionals.
“Exchange CSVs are accounting fiction. The chain is the source of truth — and that’s what survives an audit.”
— Saim Akif, CPA
Credentials
- Certified Public Accountant (CPA) — Texas
- Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) — CFA Institute
- AML Certified — Anti-Money Laundering specialist
- Akif CPA Partner — Houston, Texas
- IRS-recognized digital asset tax practitioner
- 9 years crypto-native tax practice
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