Cointracking Review and test

​​ ​​ Anyone who has been invested in various cryptocurrencies for a long time knows that the management and tracking of all coins in one portfolio can quickly become confusing.

For this reason, the German company Cointracking offers a free portfolio management tool for cryptocurrencies since 2013. Additionally, there is a tax reporting tool.

In this review, I tell you about my Cointracking experiences, what else the tool has to offer, and whether you should use it.

What is Cointracking?

CoinTracking is a leading software provider for cryptocurrency portfolio management and country-specific crypto tax reports.

The German provider was founded in 2012 by Dariusz Kachel. Dariusz Kachel developed the program because tracking the portfolio in Excel lists became confusing for him (The original Bitcointalk thread). As a result, Cointracking was not only the first provider of its kind in the world but is also an industry leader.

CoinTracking has nearly 1 million users and has a variety of very detailed reports, provides access and networking to specialized crypto tax advisors (optional if desired), and offers the service in various languages and devices (desktop, mobile apps).

CoinTracking analyzes transactions and movements on crypto exchanges and wallets, generating live reports on the entirety of the crypto portfolio.

Cointracking advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

• Up to 200 trades free of charge
• Can be used anonymously
• Very detailed and granular reporting and evaluation of the crypto portfolio.
• Suitable for beginners to professionals
• Automatic exchange import (API)
• Customized tax reporting (tax method, deadlines, portfolio segregation, etc.)
• Support for special cases (Staking, Lending, Airdrop, etc.)
• Advanced services (corporate, tax advisor, full service).
• Very good and fast customer support

Disadvantages

• Less suitable for absolute beginners
• User interface seems overloaded
• Trades are counted "generously" (account limits are reached faster)

What problem does Cointracking solve for you?

Cointracking offers a very good and suitable tracking tool for cryptocurrency investors. Cryptocurrencies are a new, global asset class that still has little to no regulation from states.

This often results in crypto investors having little to no documentation on the holdings of their coins after just a few transactions on crypto exchanges and blockchains (this is how it was for me in the beginning).

To make matters worse, due to the design of blockchains, "tax-relevant" transactions could usually be executed very easily and without the knowledge of investors (I'm not a tax accountant, so I might be writing).

There are an incredible number of new special cases that might not yet be covered by national regulatory and tax laws. Examples include Staking, Airdrops, Lending, Yield Farming, etc.

This is exactly where Cointracking comes in and solves the following problems:.

1. Documentation of movements, transactions, and holdings for cryptocurrency.
2. Evaluation of crypto investments. Detailed reporting makes it easier for you to decide whether buying Coin X was worth it after Y years
3. Creation of individualized crypto tax reports. Different methods (e.g. FiFo or LiFo method) can be selected, as there is no clear (tax) legislation for handling cryptocurrencies yet.

Are you looking for CoinTracking alternatives? You can find more providers here!

Alternatively, you can of course create a free Excel spreadsheet with all your movements. This is useful if you only have a few transactions or only use one crypto exchange. For anything beyond that, a helpful addition that saves a lot of time in documentation is.

Cointracking features

CoinTracking offers several extensive features for its users. A lot of functions are already included in the free version. The software can be used and tried for free up to 200 transactions. More about the account variants later in the article. Let's start with my CoinTracking experience with the core functions.

Cryptocurrencies portfolio tracking and overview.

In CoinTracking, all cryptocurrencies and tokens can be entered manually or automatically from exchanges or wallets. Many wallets and exchanges transactions are possible via importing CSV files in a very user-friendly way. This makes it very easy for you to import large amounts of transactions conveniently through the CoinTracking user interface.

This is half the battle for many, as CoinTracking now ensures that account movements from one wallet/exchange (withdrawal) to one wallet/exchange (deposit) are automatically linked together.

Also for not natively supported CSV imports all coins and tokens can be entered manually. The possibility of manual entry is also well suited for handling special cases (e.g. hard forks, airdrops, etc.). CoinTracking offers several transaction types and associated explanations here.

After entering the transactions, you can find numerous statistics about trades, balances, profits, and checks under Reports and Services. Some of the most important statistics listed:

Trades

• Trade Statistics
• Trade List
• Trade prices
• Trading fees
• Number of trades
• Debit and Credit List

Balance sheets

• Current balance
• Daily balance
• Balance per stock exchange
• Balance per currency
• Coins per stock exchange

Profits

• Realized and unrealized profits
• Tax-free coins (short & long)
• Roll Forward / Audit Report
• Trade Analysis
• Average purchase prices

Cryptocurrencies Tax Reporting and Tools.

CoinTracking tax reports are complete tax reports for cryptocurrencies. They are designed to be used in tax returns based on country-specific tax laws.

CoinTracking gives you a suggestion depending on the country. Through various settings options, you can influence the generation of the tax report in case you want to calculate the tax using a different method or if the tax legislation changes in the future.

Other functions

Under Charts & Trends, you can find more interesting global statistics about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. These statistics are, on the one hand, anonymized aggregate data of all Cointracking users and, on the other hand, general crypto market data that can be used for analysis. Since CoinTracking has close to 1 million users, this data is quite representative compared with other crypto investors.

Cointracking registration

Registration with Cointracking is free of charge. Different account levels allow more functionalities and trades, more about that in the next section.

To register, only a username and password are required. An email address is not required but is recommended for account recovery. This allows CoinTracking to be used anonymously if desired. Afterward, you only need to select the language and the desired currency.

Important: By using my referral code K315578 you will get a 10% Cointracking discount on all future account upgrades. I.e. even if you use CoinTracking for free for years and only then decide to upgrade, you will still receive the 10% discount.

After registration, you can enter your transactions under "Enter Coins". The CSV import for exchanges and wallets is included in the Free-Version, but you have to do without the automated API import. With a maximum of 200 transactions, this is not a big deal.

After entering the transactions, a pop-up appears, which prompts you to recalculate your transactions. This links your transactions, wallets and exchanges with each other and updates your dashboard and trading statistics. The calculation can be manually triggered with each update.

Cointracking Pricing

The Free version of CoinTracking already covers a lot and can be tried for free without any problems. Even the tax report is included for free up to 200 trades. It is better tailored and less time-consuming than a custom Excel list.

I have also used the free version for years and must say I am still thrilled. While the Free version includes ads and no automated exchange and blockchain import, it should be a good choice for many newbies if you use more than one exchange and/or wallet.

When is the Pro version worthwhile?

The Pro version can already be worthwhile after some experience in the crypto sector. It currently costs €8.99 per month (a 10% discount through a referral code) and offers everything from advanced to semi-professional investors and traders. Up to 3500 transactions are possible.

Transactions can be automatically imported from crypto exchanges and blockchains (API interfaces), multiple accounts can be managed (separation private/business, "family account", etc.), and no ads and multiple back-ups are just some of the advantages.

I first tried it with the free version and self-created Excel list. Creating the Excel lists took me many hours and is annoying because building a correct trade logic in Excel is already not trivial after a few trades.

Rule of thumb: Provided you are registered with more than two crypto exchanges and also make transactions on the blockchain (and not only trades on the exchange), the paid version can be very helpful. In this case, you will also have quickly reached the 200 transactions limit ;)

Conclusion

Industry-leading CoinTracking is a very helpful and useful portfolio and tax reporting tool for all crypto investors who are no longer absolute beginners. Even with a relatively small crypto portfolio with a few coins, wallets and exchanges, a crypto portfolio tool for tracking holdings is worthwhile.

CoinTracking shines with automated exchanges and blockchain imports (API), really very good support, a variety of detailed dashboards and statistics, and the free creation of individual control reports.

With years of experience as the first portfolio software, CoinTracking covers many crypto-specific edge cases (staking, airdrops, hard forks, etc) and separation of multiple deposits very well.

There is room for improvement in the user interface, which could look more contemporary and not so heavily cluttered. This is of course due to the level of detail of the software, but it could deter newcomers. Perhaps a simple Excel list or another provider is better suited for this target group.

Cointracking discount

Get a 10% discount on all future account upgrades with the code "K315578".