Category: Cryptoassets | Page 14

CoinTracker Review – Crypto Portfolio Tracking and Easy Tax Calculation

Last updated: November 14, 2022Leave a Comment

With thousands of cryptocurrency coins and tokens now actively traded in the online space, keeping tabs on your investments can be somewhat challenging. Similarly, if you have a tendency to buy and sell digital currencies on a regular basis, understanding your obligations to the taxman can be daunting.

Online platform CoinTracker seeks to solve both of these issues with its cryptocurrency portfolio tracker and tax calculator service. The idea is simple – by connecting your cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets to the CoinTracker portal, not only will the platform give you real-time data on the value of your investments – but it will automatically generate your capital gains.

In my CoinTracker review, I explore whether or not the platform is worth joining. I cover the ins and outs of how CoinTracker works, what you can do, and how effective its capital gains tax automation service is.

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Coinbase Review: The Best Crypto Exchange for Beginners

Last updated: June 16, 2023Leave a Comment

Buy crypto on Coinbase

If you’re looking to join the cryptocurrency revolution by buying Bitcoin for the very first time, you’ll likely want to use a platform like Coinbase.

The reason for this is that this broker tailors its website to the newbie investor. For example, it takes just minutes to open a Coinbase account, and you can buy Bitcoin with a debit card or bank account.

With that being said, Coinbase does come with its flaws – especially in the fees department. As such, I would suggest reading my in-depth Coinbase review prior to taking the plunge. I cover factors such as user-friendliness, fees, commissions, safety, and customer support.
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eToro Review 2023 – Is it a Reliable Broker?

Last updated: July 14, 202311 Comments

Note: This review only applies to non-US residents.

eToro is a Jack of all Trades in the online investment space, with the broker offering a full range of asset types that can be purchased at the click of a button. On top of traditional stocks, ETFs, and thousands of CFD (Contract For Differences) products (CFDs are not available in the US though) – eToro also allows you to buy and sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

If you are thinking about using eToro, I welcome you to read my in-depth review. I cover the ins and outs of what you need to know before opening an account – including metrics surrounding regulation, fees, commissions, payment methods, and of course – safety.

Open an eToro account

*76% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

What is eToro?

Launched in 2006, eToro is an online broker and trading platform. As a member of the site, you will have access to a full range of asset classes. In terms of traditional ownership – you can buy and sell over 800 stocks from a number of international markets, as can you do with ETFs. Moreover, eToro is also home to thousands of CFD products – including but not limited to hard metals, energies, indices, interest rates, and currencies.

With that being said, if you’re more interested in the cryptocurrency side of the platform – the broker gives you the best of both worlds. This is because you can invest in digital currencies and retain full ownership of the asset, or alternatively, trade via CFDs. As I cover in greater depth further down, eToro does not allow you to withdraw your cryptocurrencies out to a private wallet. Instead, you will need to keep your coins on the platform, making it a better option for those who want to profit from trading rather than hold crypto assets for the long term.

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📈 What is the Best Cryptocurrency Portfolio Tracker?

Last updated: December 08, 202355 Comments

Buy cryptos

With thousands of crypto tradeable assets available, it is hard to keep track of your crypto portfolio these days. Even if you’re just buying and selling one or two different coins, you can quickly lose track of things, especially if you’re using several crypto exchanges or trading apps like Binance, Kraken, Binance etc. Not to mention if you’ve been dabbling around in DeFi and DEXes like Uniswap and Sushiswap.

It is also important to track other crypto-related activities, for example when earning interest on your crypto through platforms like Nexo and YouHodler.

You could also be using one of the various crypto debit and credit cards, like Crypto.com, where for tax purposes you will need to keep track of every single purchase done with your card.

As you can see, it is important to know your positions in an easy way, and there is no better way than to use an app or software solution.

You need to know where you stand at all times:

to keep track of your overall investment
to be prepared when tax time comes along

Here are my favorite portfolio tracking and tax preparation tools.

CoinTracking

CoinTracking is the most complete portfolio tracker on the market. They have automatic import from exchanges built-in, and the interface is very clean. Their support is fantastic, and best of all, everything is free for those with few transactions. This is the system I would have built if I had to build a tracker myself.

CoinTracking analyzes your trades and generates real-time reports on profit and loss, the value of your coins, realized and unrealized gains, reports for taxes and much more. With the prices for 7666 coins and assets, you’ll always have a complete overview.

620K+ Active Users
750+ CPAs & Corporate Clients
11 Years of Historical Data
Coin Trends for 7666 Coins
$4.3B Total Value of all Portfolios

This is one of the earliest and most complete services available out there. They have two offerings, one for crypto traders and the other for crypto companies.

See also: My detailed review of Cointracking

CoinTracking.info has one of the most extensive customer service areas I have seen on tax reporting platforms. It has an elaborate documentation section that covers almost every question you might have. It also has a separate FAQ that caters to the most commonly asked questions.

There is even a CoinTracking.info robot ready at your disposal. This is all aside from the typical customer service tools such as communities, live chat, video tutorials, and email contact. There is also a demo version of the website available that can give you a good idea of what to expect once you start using the platform.

Of course, CoinTracking also calculates crypto taxes every year for you. Given that it’s still so hard to find competent accountants who understand crypto (plus it would be very expensive), it’s well worth it to pay for a tool like this that prepares everything for you. At any point, you can review your tax summary, and download the reports you need to file your taxes. CoinTracking is seamlessly integrated with TurboTax and your accountant’s software. Full support is offered in US, UK, Canada, Australia, and partial support for every other country. They are adding full support for other countries too, so check out the site for the latest list.

I’ve spoken to the founder of CoinTracker on my podcast Mastermind.fm, so check that episode out if you’re interested in learning more about the platform and crypto taxation in general.

You can not only connect it to your exchanges to pull in all the data about trades you’ve made, but you can also mark transfers to your Ledger Nano or other cold wallets so that they are not deducted from your overall balance.

In terms of exchanges, they practically support every exchange out there, including my favorites Binance and Binance. You can import your data automatically via API or upload a CSV of all your trades. Cointracker uses read-only access to your exchange accounts to protect your funds. That is very very important as it means that Cointracker will never have any permission to operate with your crypto.

Read more: The Best Books about Bitcoin and Crypto

This service offers a broad and comprehensive analysis of your crypto portfolio – which allows you to manage all your digital currency accounts at once.

Moreover, its longstanding reputation has allowed the CoinTracking.info team to update the platform regularly to cater to the changing needs of the crypto community.

To ensure the provider is right for you, CoinTracking.info also offers a free account to help you understand whether the platform can fit your tax reporting needs. Overall, CoinTracking.info comes across as one of the most efficient management tools you can use for your crypto portfolios.

Get your 10% discount on Cointracking plans

Koinly

Koinly was established in 2018 and has already generated more than 11,000 tax reports for its clients.

I like it since it’s not 100% US-focused, and as such you can use it to prepare your German, Italian, Spanish, French taxes along with many other countries. The team behind Koinly is composed of tax lawyers, accountants and engineers who study the tax implementations of many countries and make sure the software can support these systems as well as a plethora of worldwide exchanges.

See also: My detailed review of Koinly

Koinly automatically imports your transactions, finds all the market prices at the time of your trades, matches transfers between your own wallets, calculates your crypto gains/losses and generates your tax reports.

Check out Koinly

Cointelli

Cointelli is one of the most recent additions to the crypto tax reporting tools and to date, it is only available to US-based crypto investors who are after obtaining automated US-tax reports.

Established in 2021, Cointelli’s service is intended to ease the pressure of accurate tax reporting by automatically compiling your transactions from across your wallets and exchanges. Once it generates your transaction list, Cointelli’s software will consequently help you to easily fix any errors therein, prepare a comprehensive report for tax purposes based on the latest tax provisions and have it sent out to your accountant or other relevant tax platforms.

Apart from freeing up a great deal of precious time, Cointelli places a lot of effort into helping you generate the required stats and reports as accurately as possible, thus saving you from paying any unnecessary tax.

Cointelli’s pricing structure is lean with a one-size-fits-all price for consumers and customized packages for large transaction-volume enterprises. For a flat annual fee of $49, clients can benefit from all the Cointelli suites and services for up to 100,000 crypto transactions, be it DeFi, margin trades, or NFTs. This is very competitive pricing, particularly when a number of other platforms offering similar services, already start charging a higher fee as soon as transaction volume exceeds 100.

Cointelli also scores high in terms of support. It not only offers customer support via email and chat widget, but also provides 24/7 live customer service with dedicated tax experts.

Get your crypto tax report with Cointelli

CryptoTaxCalculator

Direct support for hundreds of exchanges, including Binance, Binance, and Kraken.
Handles staking rewards, airdrops, margin/futures trading, perpetuals, lost/stolen funds, ICOs, and much more.
Direct support for DeFi protocols such as Uniswap, PancakeSwap, Binance Smart Chain.
Pricing is an annual subscription, and you can cancel anytime, with a 30 day money back guarantee.
The plan covers all historical tax years so if you need to amend your tax return for previous tax years the plan has you covered.
Prices range from $49 (100 transactions); $99 (2,500 transactions); $249 (10,000 transactions), $399 (100,000 transactions).

Open an account with CryptoTaxCalculator

TokenTax

TokenTax is a crypto tax software platform and a full-service cryptocurrency tax accounting firm. This tool also takes care of tax-loss harvesting. If you hold assets at a loss, then you can save money on your taxes. TokenTax’s Tax Loss Harvesting dashboard tells you exactly how much losses you can claim by strategically selling off assets.

Read more: My in-depth review of TokenTax

Tax loss harvesting is selling off assets you hold at a loss to reduce your capital gains. When you reduce your capital gains, you owe less taxes. And, if you take a loss in crypto, you can offset other capital gains in assets like stocks.

Support for margin trading is also included.

Check out Tokentax

Cryptotrader

CryptoTrader.Tax takes away the pain of preparing your bitcoin and crypto taxes. Simply connect your exchanges, import trades, and download your tax report in minutes.

Check out Cryptotrader

Kubera

Kubera helps you to organize all your wealth in one place and keep regular track of your net worth in a very simple intuitive way. In fact, Kubera is a more holistic tracker than the above platforms in that apart from automatically tracking your crypto position and NFT holdings, it also captures your bank and brokerage accounts, real estate, vehicles, domains and metals. Kubera also allows you to manually input any other assets you own so that you can obtain a comprehensive view of your net worth in real-time.

Kubera will also provide you charts with analytics showing you how your net worth and investments changed over time. Every update to your asset value is kept in history to go back in time to see how you fared. It also allows you to keep an eye on the asset allocation and statistics indicating which asset experienced the highest appreciation or depreciation.

Kubera also calculates accurate rate of returns (IRR) for all your investments based on the multiple contributions & withdrawals and the time invested. It also benchmarks the IRR with the returns from popular indices and tickers (S&P 500, Dow Jones, AAPL, BTC etc.).

See also: My detailed review of Kubera

Another handy feature of Kubera is the possibility to store important financial or asset documents on the platform.

Through Kubera you will also be able to share a read-only link of your portfolio with others. In addition, with Kubera’s “Life Beat” feature you can allow portfolio and document access to your beneficiary of choice, however only after extended periods of inactivity.

Check out Kubera

How to Easily Prepare Your Crypto Taxes

So you’ve fallen down the crypto rabbit hole, started buying and selling some Bitcoin, then bought some Ether, and perhaps even ventured further to buy some other altcoins.

After some time, seeing that you’re profiting massively, you decide to sell some of your tokens. Sometime later, you decide to buy a new token that you believe will revolutionize the world.

The problem is, of course, keeping track of all these purchases and sales. You want to keep track of whether you’re actually turning a profit or not, plus you need to calculate what you owe your country’s taxman at the end of the year.

Crypto taxes are a complex topic, but I’ve done my best to summarise the situation in several major countries, so check out my post on how Bitcoin and other cryptos are taxed around the world.

So what are your options for crypto tax preparation?

You could keep track of things manually using a tool like Excel, but this quickly gets out of hand, especially if you’re trading on multiple platforms or have multiple wallets.

The better solution is to use an online crypto tax preparation tool.

All the tools mentioned in this post can help you in preparing your taxes apart from acting as a handy crypto portfolio.

If you’re preparing your crypto taxes for the first time, I would suggest you check out my favorite portfolio/tax preparation tools:

Depending on what your needs are, what jurisdiction you’re in, and what your budget is, you can choose one of those platforms. All three of them are excellent and run by serious people, so you cannot go wrong.

What’s your favorite crypto tax preparation tool?

Is Bitcoin a Bubble, a Fraud, or a Scam?

Last updated: September 15, 20224 Comments

Article written in 2017 during the Bitcoin bull run.

As the world of cryptocurrency continues to heat up, several investment experts are starting to question the rise of cryptos, and some have gone as far as predicting that we will soon see the greatest financial crash in history.

The argument usually starts by saying that the crypto world is purely speculative, and that’s why most of the institutional investors have so far preferred to stay out of the game. Cryptos are then compared to tulip mania, the Nikkei’s crash and the dotcom bubble of the late 90s. Here’s a quote from the article I linked above that sums up the argument being presented by this bearish point of view:

Some have likened the cryptocurrency market to the Internet sector in 1999. While there was little doubt then, and clear evidence since, that those companies would take over the planet, the two Nasdaq indices fell an average of 90% in the 30 months ending 2002. This time, the bitcoin mania, which has dwarfed even the Tulip Bulb lunacy, should become the posterchild graduate school case study for not only finance, but also psychology, sociology, and perhaps other disciplines. Ironically, for lacking discipline!

I feel that it is good to think about how different scenarios could play out, and to try to adopt both a positive and negative outlook on things when investing, and then compare which side’s arguments make most sense. To sort out this conundrum, I asked my friend Marcel Ellis, who is a crypto expert and runs a few courses over at MoneyZoo.org.

Here’s what he had to say about the argument:

1) To compare Bitcoin to the Tulip Mania is silly.

2) Comparing the entire Cryptocurrency eco system to the dot com bubble is a much better analysis and I will discuss why and how parts of the article are relevant and others not.

The dot com bubble allowed for virtually any unknown to create IPOs to raise funds for whatever reason without any normal consideration of profitability or due diligence. We have a similar, if not worse, scenario today with ICOs which are endangering the entire crypto ecosystem – and I have been warning for 2 months about these ICOs.

Many companies during the dot com bubble were debt ridden with staff and investors living an overly lavish life. Giveaways of millions of dollars worth of prize money for contests were offered – which of course was silly considering the amount of debt they had. We don’t have this scenario with cryptos, at least that I am aware of.

3) Mass hysteria. Big yes and this worries me. While it is always nice to see gains, I know deep down that when there are huge rallies there will be huge dips of an almost equal proportion. Take NEO for example. Why has it spiked to $22 at the time of writing when just a few days ago it was $7. Something is wrong and in the crypto world, knowing what is organic growth, what is FUD and what is FOMO is even more critical than is the stock world.

Is Bitcoin in a bubble? Bitcoin has been in a bubble since the day it was born just like any other asset with perceived value like gold, or just like any asset with manipulated value like diamonds. Bitcoin can be compared fairly to both gold and diamonds as it has characteristics of both.

I think a more important question is to ask if the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem is in a bubble, and here I would venture to say YES to many of the cryptos and that YES they will bring the price of Bitcoin tumbling down for a while. This is a much-needed thing and will clean up the market for it to mature in much the same way the dot com bubble cleaned up the net with winners like eBay and Amazon eventually having larger valuations than pre bubble.

My outlook long term remains Bullish for Bitcoin and a few other coins but I am very bearish on around 98% of the crypto world.

I agree with Marcel’s point of view. While one can never predict the future, and there is indeed the possibility of a big crash that will wipe out the huge gains in Bitcoin’s value over the years, there is a lot of real value in this technology that surely can’t be considered worthless. We are still in the very early days both in terms of the technology and its applications and also in terms of adoption rates.

There have been various bullish predictions that counteract negative view on the future of cryptos, including a recent claim by a Harvard academic that Bitcoin’s price could hit $100,000 by 2021. At finance conferences this year, the vast majority of people I spoke to agreed that the goal for Bitcoin in 2018 is $10,000.

In a similar vein, I was following a discussion in Malta’s Bitcoin group on Facebook. The main point being discussed was whether Bitcoin is one huge bubble similar to the Tulip mania craze in the 17th century Netherlands. Given the articles we see in the media, this is a valid question to pose. One commenter, Jonathan Galea, left a comment that I thought was very well written and worth sharing on my blog, with his permission of course.

Here’s the comment from the Bitcoin Malta group.

FACT: the tulip bubble centred on a product which has no inherent value apart from being a plant. The right cryptocurrencies have inherent value which solve real-world problems.

FACT: therefore, the “crypto-bubble” should be likened to the dotcom bubble and not the tulip bubble. That’s your first mistake

FACT: the dotcom bubble peaked at 3 TRILLION dollars. Trillion with a T. The current total crypto market is worth $110 billion, with a small b. You can do the maths. Keep in mind that the dotcom bubble was reached at a time when social media and global connections were not the norm… and inflation has had its way since then too.

FACT: the institutional investors haven’t entered the playground yet. What you’re seeing are just BTC whales trapped in the crypto-ecosystem since there’s no regulation in place through which they can legitimately cash out their earnings. Either that, or they know that the bubble has not yet formed and there’s plenty of money to be made. Either way, they have purchasing power worth millions. A small BTC whale can easily invest 800 BTC.

FACT: Buying altcoins for normal people is still a laborious process. The people I’ve had to explain it to are normally-versed in tech and they still found it difficult without guidance. Until and unless crypto investments are easily accessible as least to the tech-savvy, then one can’t talk about a bubble yet. Once ETFs come into play, then we’ll see signs of a bubble forming.

FACT: 2018 will be the year when crypto-projects start coming into fruition and offering versions of their product to widespread use. Those who don’t deliver will die, the others will grow… fast.

FACT: At the height of the dotcom bubble, the average person on the street was talking about it. I dare you to randomly find at least 5 people out of 10 who can give you a satisfactory definition of Bitcoin if you were to conduct a survey in Valletta. It’s still nowhere near being mainstream; and if Bitcoin isn’t, let along the hundreds of other altcoins out there which are even more promising that Bitcoin.

FACT: Mainstream media were screaming bubble back in 2013 when BTC’s price hit $1200. It screamed it again when BTC’s price hit $1300 at the start of this year. Are you starting to see a pattern?

Are Cryptocurrencies a fraud and a scam?

Many have pronounced Bitcoin dead over the years, while others have said that it’s a scam or a fraud. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, famously also took aim at bitcoin, calling the cryptocurrency “a fraud” and “worse than tulip bulbs.”

Understandably, this came as a bit of a shock to the lay people who don’t really understand the fundamentals of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. As I said, this is by no means the first time that someone has pronounced Bitcoin dead or denounced cryptocurrencies, but unfortunately, statements from such prominent people always make the news.

Let’s be clear, Dimon’s firm is one of the chief architects of the global financial crisis that led to the interest in a somewhat arcane cryptocurrency in the first place. There would be no bitcoin without Jamie Dimon — and in some ways he’s right to fear its rise.

As a Vanity Fair piece revealed, JPMorgan Chase paid out $13 billion (with a “b”) to the U.S. government because of its role in the financial crisis and the mortgage security fiasco that almost destroyed the U.S. economy.

This goes to show that you need to be very careful where you’re getting your news and information from. There’s a lot of purely ridiculous stuff out there, especially in new spaces such as cryptocurrencies.

It is normal and actually recommended to approach Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with a criticial mind. They are obviously highly speculative investments and have no intrinsic value. However, they are also a whole new type of asset. To try and compare them to tulip bulbs is just naive, as I discussed in a previous post. There is really no direct comparison to Bitcoin and cryptos throughout history, and that is what makes it so exciting.

Unlike fiat currency, Bitcoin is fully transparent and controlled. We know exactly how many Bitcoins will exist in 5, 10 or 50 years. If you take a look at history and the ways that fiat currency has been manipulated and how many people’s lives were instantly ruined during periods of hyperinflation, amongst other government triggered actions, you would be hard-pressed to name Bitcoin as a fraud and not fiat currencies.

What is eToro?

How to Easily Prepare Your Crypto Taxes

Are Cryptocurrencies a fraud and a scam?

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