While it was deemed to be treated as property, IRS never gave guidance on ability to treat it as like kind transaction. Accountants have been asking for this clarification for years. SEC treating ICO as a security. IRS needs to come out with more guidance, but doing taxes is going to be a pain with crypto to crypto. Not looking for trouble with IRS, especially when gains were plentiful for so many this year. Pay your…
"Q-6: Does a taxpayer have gain or loss upon an exchange of virtual currency for other property?"
"A-6: Yes." (quote continues, but there you go).
I have no idea how folks came to the conclusion that 1031 swaps were ever acceptable, but it's always been clear that the IRS did not think they were.
TL;DR Don't get your tax advice from Reddit. (Or random commenters on hacker news, for that matter.)