Track your trades with the correct trading pair

saor

saor

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I've fallen into this trap a few times now, especially when away from pc and only checking blockfolio. What happens is I'll buy an altcoin (let's say KNC) with bitcoin and then load that altcoin into blockfolio and update my holdings.

A few weeks / months later I'll check my KNC holdings and see that it's up 22% - nice.
knc_gain.png


However, if I switch to BTC value I can see that I'm actually at a loss on the trade...
knc_loss.png


I bought KNC at .000158 BTC and it's current value is .000136 BTC, so my KNC trade is clearly not doing well.
knc_chart.png


The only reason it's up 22% in the first picture is because bitcoin is up. What I'm seeing is the difference between the higher bitcoin price and the lower KNC price, which in USD still results in a net positive. This is a bad trade indeed, as my money would've done better just staying in bitcoin.

Make sure you're tracking your altcoin trades in the currency pair you bought them in :).
 
This is true. I've seen this with, for example, XRP as well. There is a huge difference in the BTC and Dollar value at any given time. I've had many times where it will be up in BTC terms, and down in Dollars, and vice versa. I concur, make sure you compare apples with apples, so to speak.
 
Interesting as I have been thinking about the same issue recently. Generally I have noticed that BTC pairs are not really doing anything, as you say its the increasing value of BTC that makes us think the trade is positive.

My observation is that when BTC is climbing the other alts are falling. So transferring in and out between BTC and another altcoin isnt really doing anything other than earning fees for the exchange. Im sure there are exceptions but Im not finding them regularly enough to be a BTC/altcoin pair trader.

Where I am seeing the benefit is currency/BTC pairs. Like on Luno and altcoin trader but these these exchanges dont have the conditional order functionality like bittrex for example so one has to be actively watching.

On bittrex you cant trade the currency pair but I use the tether as an alternative which is pretty much like trading back and forth with USD.
 
Thanks soar for the valuable info! I'm a newbie to cryptocurrency trading and a long time lurker of the forums so any bit of info helps me
 
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