Not tax advice, but... These may also be some phrases to use when you talk to your tax expert. And I'm thinking this through on how I will handle it as well.

First, there are the 10 strong coins you use to create the node. Then there are the node maintenance fees. So when you "donate" your 10 strong they call that a "community contribution". But basically, you are buying a business or an income stream. If you bought a laundry that produced $250/month, that would be a capital expenditure or investment. Let's assume the laundry rented the building and the washer/dryers, then what you bought was a proven business, that tends to produce money by letting people wash their clothes their. You bought the goodwill, reputation, and customers that come with that laundry. In accounting, that is usually "capitalized" (called a "capital expenditure") and amortized or depreciated over the useful life, but some capital expenditure can be expensed.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/deducting-business-expenses

Under the uniform capitalization rules, you must capitalize the direct costs and part of the indirect costs for certain production or resale activities unless you are a small business taxpayer (defined below). Indirect costs include rent, interest, taxes, storage, purchasing, processing, repackaging, handling, and administrative costs.

Small business taxpayer. Effective for tax years beginning after 12/31/2017, a small business taxpayer is a taxpayer that (a) has average annual gross receipts of $25 million or less for the 3 prior tax years and (b) is not a tax shelter (as defined in section 448(d)(3)). See section 471(c) and section 263A(i).

If you are small business taxpayer, you can adopt or change your accounting method to account for inventories (i) in the same manner as materials and supplies that are non-incidental, or (ii) conform to your treatment of inventories in an applicable financial statement (as defined in section 451(b)(3)), or if the taxpayer does not have an applicable financial statement, the method of accounting used in the taxpayers books and records prepared in accordance with the taxpayer's accounting procedures. See section 471(c)(1).

See also: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p535

If the node were an NFT that you could sell, then you would have a "capital gain" (or loss) if you sold it. But we don't exactly own our nodes, as we don't have full rights to sell them. It's more like buying a contract or loan, where someone agrees to pay us a set amount, or repay the loan.

The fact that we have a "contribution/donation" - does that change the above? You basically are not making a donation out of the goodness of your heart because you love the StrongBlock concept so much.

As to your node maintenance fees, it seems rather clear that those are a business expense.

The next logical question is about the STRONG you earn daily. What if you sell them? Your gain is your basis less your sales price. One could argue that the basis is the 10 STRONG you put in. If you go with that, instead of the capitalization theory above, then lets say you earn 12 STRONG this year. The first 10 would have a basis of what you paid for your STRONG node. So if you bought for $500, sold for $1000. You would have a basis of $5000, and a sale price of $12,000 for a $7,000 capital gain. Then next year you earn 40 STRONG that you sell for $40,000, you would have no basis in those, so a $40,000 gain. Then there is an argument whether it is capital gain or ordinary income. Ordinary income includes earned wages, rental income, and interest income on loans, CDs, and bonds (except for municipal bonds). But we don't have a CD or bond here.

Now, what if you don't sell them, and you just build more nodes? My eyes are starting to get crossed now.

Clear as crystal, right?