Even after testing numerous alternatives to CoinTracking, I haven’t been able to find any cryptocurrency portfolio manager which has as much functionality for the same cost.
In this review, I’ll walk you through some of its best features and why it’s the #1 cryptocurrency portfolio manager available.
Features
Overview
CoinTracking.info has been around since 2013 and currently has over 750,000 active users. It’s packed full of great features which help you manage your cryptocurrency portfolio and make better decisions.
These include:
- Free and paid options.
- Browser-based, but has a mobile app too.
- Automatically tracks your transactions on 40 cryptocurrency exchanges.
- Generate reports of your cryptocurrency trading or investment performance (e.g. ‘realised and unrealised gains’ and ‘average purchase prices’).
- Supports over 9000 currencies (with price information).
- Generates tax reports for 100+ countries using 12 different methods (FIFO, LIFO, HIFO, LOFO, HRMC, and more).
- An ‘easy enter’ feature which is free and allows you to watch your portfolio in an easy, simplified interface.
These are just some of CoinTracking’s features. You can find an overview of features on their homepage or here.
DEMO: I’ll walkthrough some of the main benefits of using CoinTracking below. If you’d prefer to explore its benefits yourself, you can play around with their demo account (which has sample transactions).
Automatic Exchange & Wallet Tracking
Automatic API Import
At the time of writing, CoinTracking allows you to automatically import transactions from 40 exchanges. This includes popular exchanges such as Binance, Bittrex, Coinbase Pro, and Kraken.
Setting this up is quick and easy. You just need to allow CoinTracking read-only (so it can’t withdraw or make trades) API access to an exchange. CoinTracking provides step-by-step instructions to help you out for each exchange.
Once you’ve set this up, you’ll NEVER have to manually enter transactions you make on that exchange again. This is super-convenient and has saved me heaps of time since I started using it. By itself, this makes CoinTracking worth the money for me.
Wallet Tracking
You can also setup CoinTracking to watch your cryptocurrency wallets for incoming and outgoing transactions. You can set this up for BTC, BCH, BSV, ETH, and over 200 other altcoins. Yet another awesome feature.
Manual Exchange & Wallet CSV Import
Exchanges
For those exchanges which you can’t automatically import transactions from (e.g. LocalBitcoins), you can manually import your transactions. You’ll do this by downloading a CSV file from the exchange and then uploading it on CoinTracking. They provide instructions to walk you through this.
Even if your cryptocurrency exchange is not supported, you can still import CSV or Excel files. If you’re doing this, I’d suggest you upload these transactions through the Excel import. They provide some instructions here. You probably won’t need this (because they do support all the major exchanges), but it’s nice to have.
Wallets
You can also manually import incoming and outgoing wallet transactions from Blockchain, Electrum, Exodus, Gatehub, Mycelium, Ledger, and Trezor. As before, this process is quick and easy.
Trade Reports
The real benefit of using CoinTracking is the wealth of information which you can get from their dashboard and reports.
Because all your transactions are tracked in one place, you’re able to make better, more informed decisions about whether to buy/sell something (or do nothing). It’s helped me a lot.
These reports might be intimidating at first, but there is website documentation and an FAQ on some pages (see screenshot below).
Unrealised and Realised Gains
An unrealised gain (or loss) is the profit (or loss) you’d achieve if you sold at that moment. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘paper profit/loss’
A realised gain (or loss) is the profit (or loss) you’ve already generated with purchases/sales. Some more details here.
This shows the current unrealised and realised gains (or losses) for all the cryptocurrencies you currently hold. By default unrealised and realised gains are calculated using the FIFO (first-in, first-out) method, but you can change this.
I’ve found this extremely useful for monitoring the value of my realised gains and keeping track of my (approximate) capital gains obligations.
Average Purchase Prices
In comparison to the information shown on the unrealised and realised gains page, only the average purchase price is calculated here.
In December 2017, I was using this to average down the purchase price of some cryptocurrencies I held (so that I wasn’t exposing myself to as much risk). For some cryptocurrencies, I just wanted to play with the profit I’d made – not any of my initial investment.
In such cases, I would pull out the value shown in column 2 (see below) from my cryptocurrency holdings. For example, I’d withdraw about £1000 worth of DOGE to put my purchase value below £0. All my remaining DOGE would be profit. Even if DOGE price falls to £0.00, I wouldn’t have lost any of my initial investment.
Tax Reports
If you upgrade to one of CoinTracking’s paid plans, you’ll get access to their do-it-yourself tax report generator. You can customise all the details of the report for your country of residence. There’s guidance for a number of countries – including the USA, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Austria, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
If you’re from the UK, you have a capital gains tax-free allowance of:
- £12,300 from 2021/22 to 2025/26.
- £12,300 in 2020/21
- £12,000 in 2019/20
- £11,700 in 2018/19
As of February 2019, CoinTracking.info can produce tax reports compliant with HRMC guidelines. However, you do have to configure the settings according to your financial situation for it to output an accurate report.
If you want more details:
- Check out the /r/BitcoinUK tax thread.
- Ask questions in the /r/BitcoinUK discord.
- Contact a tax professional.
If you’re liable to pay tax and unsure whether your report is correct, it’d be sensible to get professional help. Nonetheless, a tool like CoinTracking can help an accountant make sense of what you’ve been up to.
If you’re from the UK and looking for alternatives to this, check out BittyTax (a free tool to calculate your tax obligations).
Mobile App
The mobile app was recently revamped – and it looks good.
It does everything you’d expect:
- Get an overview of your portfolio value and recent price changes.
- Portfolio value over time.
- Cryptocurrency price trends.
- Unrealised and realised gains (summarised).
It’s not like the desktop version, but CoinTracking’s mobile app does offer just as much as Blockfolio and Delta – two popular mobile cryptocurrency portfolio trackers.
It would benefit from a little love, especially the clunky alerts system (process described below). If you don’t want anyone accidentally stumbling onto your portfolio, you’d also be well advised to logout after you’re done using the app too (or set a password using another app). Not ideal.
To setup alerts:
1. Go to the 1st page (the app dashboard) and tap on a cryptocurrency.
2. In the bottom right, tap the bell which says: ‘Alerts OFF’.
3. Tap the ‘+’ symbol in the top right.
4. You can now setup alerts for when the price hits a specific fiat (e.g., GBP) or BTC value.
5. Tap ‘Save’ and you’ll see something like this.
6. You can add multiple alerts for when the same cryptocurrency hits other price points (just repeat the process).
Some additional things:
- Once an alert is triggered, it’ll push a notification to your phone. It then turns OFF that alert.
- You must repeat this process for every cryptocurrency you want to setup an alert for.
- You can turn off or delete ALL your alerts (but NOT edit them) by:
- Tapping your ‘Back’ button while on any page.
- Selecting ‘Alerts’.
Easy Enter
This is a separate system which doesn’t impact your charts or analysis. It’s aimed at beginners and allows you to:
- Check the amount of cryptocurrency you hold, their overall value, and their value per unit.
- Add entries (entries for the same coin are aggregated on page reload).
- Check out the profit/loss for each cryptocurrency you hold.
I’m not a fan of this. You’d be better served using Blockfolio or Delta if this is all you want.
Cost
You can try out CoinTracking with a free account (manage up to 200 trades), but you’ll need to upgrade your account to unlock all its great features.
Upgrading your account to unlock all the features isn’t cheap though. Fortunately, there are two quick and easy discounts you can grab:
- A 10% discount (on any account upgrade) when you signup through this link.
- A 5% discount when you pay with BTC.
Upgrades are anchored to the fixed costs shown below (which don’t include the above discounts).
| PRO (3500 Transactions) | EXPERT (20,000 Transactions) | UNLIMITED | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost for one year | €107 | €167 | €551 |
| Cost for two years | €167 | €263 | €887 |
| Cost for lifetime use | €349 | €749 | €4349 |
It’s not cheap. But compared to the alternatives, I think this is incredible value for money. What CoinTracking offers is miles ahead.
The cost for a lifetime unlimited license does seem a little crazy (at €4349) though. You’d be wiser to just stick with the two-year plan and then re-evaluate your options when it comes time to renew.
The Bottom Line
I’m a big fan of CoinTracking.
Before settling with CoinTracking, I tried several well-recommended mobile and desktop cryptocurrency portfolio managers. But nothing comes close to the convenience, functionality, and value of CoinTracking. I still think it’s the #1 cryptocurrency portfolio tracker out there.
But I don’t think it’s for everyone.
If you’re making less than 50-100 trades a year, I don’t think it makes much sense to buy a license for this. Stick with a spreadsheet or free options (e.g. Delta or Blockfolio).
But if you are making regular trades, then I think CoinTracking is a must-buy. It saves you time, works straight out of the box, and helps you make better decisions. For less than £100 a year, I think it’s a great deal.
CoinTracking.info WebsiteREMINDER: You can test-drive most the features by signing up for a free account. Sign up through this link and you’ll get 10% off if you decide to upgrade later.
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