Bitcoin Forum

Should we measure our investment returns in fiat or in BTC? Does it only depend on when you want to cash out in fiat?
I've been measuring my investment returns in fiat, and it was almost always going up. But when it comes to BTC it actually went down. Should we cash out our alts into bitcoin and accumulate more?

If you're interested in the topic and have similar dilemma, then I recommend you watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkKYuoRg6jM

Real profit makers do measure in reference to btc but common traders and investors that represent the vast majority do track in terms of usd and they are happy if their investment is up with regards to usd.

I measure it in fiat, I think it's the only way common investors can keep track of their investments.. I always think of it in terms of, how much fiat did I initially spend to buy coins, and how much fiat would I get if I were to cash out all my coins right now. It makes it easier for me to know where I am.

I think its better to measure it using bitcoin as oour obvious reason to buy more altcoins is "making bigger bitcoin portfolio". So I choose bitcoin. You can also use ether to measure erc20 profits.

I would measure my profit in bitcoin because even though you are up in dollar but down in bitcoin you are still at a loss because you would have more dollar if you are just holding bitcoin.

Take for example this one. You have one bitcoin with a value of $10,000 and then invested half of it in altcoin. After sometime, bitcoin would go up and as a result, some altcoin would go down. Lets say if you convert your altcoin to bitcoin then it would have a value of 0.30btc + 0.50 btc so you have a total of 0.80btc. The dollar value of bitcoin would be $15,000 per coin so $15,000*0.80btc= $12,000. If you didn't invest in altcoin then you should have $15,000 but you only have $12,000 so you have a loss of $3,000.

I measure my profits by $ namely usdt because usdt is the currency less agitated for and stable value. we can not measure profits by Bitcoin because it is greed. Bitcoin has grown so fast in recent times and of course it comes to BTC actually it went down.
I advocate investing in Bitcoin

I prefer measuring profit in fiat, because this way it surely goes up more, than if I consider bitcoin. I don't use bitcoin in real life, so I guess fiat profit is more reasonable. Yet surely I try to keep in mind that sometimes I take some btc and buy an altcoin which then gives me 2x profit if counted in usd, but if I just kept that money in bitcoin, it would have given me 3x profit in usd. It is really unbelievable that one can make thorough research and invest successfully in an altcoin and smb else can buy btc and do nothing and in the end turn out to have higher profit than you did.

I measure profit in fiat, but I only consider it profit when I cash out.

there is no real answer to this because to me it is like asking "are you measuring your profit in USD or EUR or JPY or CNY,...?"
bitcoin is also a currency and it has the volatility like others but bigger.

with that said, it depends on what you use to invest in them. for example when you are using bitcoin then you must measure it in bitcoin and if invest with fiat then measure in fiat. if you do it any other way, you will get wrong results.

for example if you invest 1BTC in an altcoin when the price of it is 0.1BTC and bitcoin is $5000 and then that altcoin starts getting dumped down to 0.05BTC and you sell at 0.8BTC you have lost 20%. if you measure this in BTC then your stats will be correct. but if you measure it in fiat, bitcoin is no $10,000 and your 0.8BTC after loss is $8000 instead of your initial $5000. your stats will show gain but in fact you lost $2000

Same thing here, I measure the amount of fiat currency I cash out. Most of my investments are in altcoins so the BTC pairing is often misleading.

Let us not fool ourselves. You have to measure your profit in bitcoin and not in fiat if you are trading it with altcoin vs. BTC. You can only base  your profit in fiat if you trade bitcoin vs. fiat. Don't give an excuse to yourself because you lose on trading. The moment you accept that you did a mistake the more you get better in trading.

Until recently, I was a miner and a staker. Everything I mined was converted to fiat to pay for the electricity and to get my ROI on the GPUs.

Once that was done, all my profits were invested in a PoS altcoin, namely DMD.

Now, I'm generating revenue and selling minimal amounts for fiat.

Obviously I have to measure my profits in fiat!

I measure in fiat but never sell at a loss in Bitcoin value because that would mean have less that if I had just held Bitcoin.

I measure my profits only in BTC. The main reason people trade altcoins is to get more bitcoins. You do buy altcoins with bitcoin not fiat after all. So if you sell for less satoshis than you bought it's not really a profit, your fiat increased only because BTC increased.

If you are trading for fiat, you can measure your trade in fiat and calculate your profit in usd. I trade against altcoin with bitcoin. so I am keen on seeing my bitcoin increase in satochis

If you are trading for fiat, you can measure your trade in fiat and calculate your profit in usd. I trade against altcoin with bitcoin. so I am keen on seeing my bitcoin increase in satochis

Six months ago I measured my profits in bitcoins. But to watch how the number of my bitcoins decreases was very sad and so I began to measure my profit in dollars. In general, there are crypto-currencies, the profit from the sale of which is better measured in dollars-such as the ethereum, neo. And such coins as a trust, waves, gup-it is possible to fix profit in bitcoins. It's my opinion.

I think his profits should be measured primarily in percentage, and then in dollars, although I understand that the dollar is losing relevance, but it is more convenient to read than in the btc))

I am a type of guy who always want to increase total bitcoin holding along with few other alts like ethereum, litecoin etc. When all other alts or tokens get pumped in terms of bitcoin than only I sell them for bitcoin rather than for fiat and keep that bitcoin or invest it in another coin and keep doing so to increase my total bitcoin holding.

The profits shoul be measured in a refference value that doesen`t change to  much. Thats why it is best to measure it in dollar or in the currency of your country. I say this because ultimatly you are interested in the money you have in youre own pocket and you can spend. After all you did spend money to make that currency and you need money to your day to day spending.
I hope i made myself clear why i am using dolar for my refference and i suggest everyone to do so.

Well... I hope when one day I have enough invested in any coin(s) I would probably stick to how much BTC I have... so the higher that value becomes.... the higher the profit in the long run.
I hope it makes sense  ;D

People will go to $ because thats what the headlines are in and they put money in and out in local currency (converted to $).  However, coins diverge from the benchmark BTC value, so you can double $ value while losing BTC, net effect is you lost against holding the same amount in BTC.  People need to switch to using BTC/Satoshis (which oddly is common for small priced coins), starting with setting CoinMarketCap to show BTC.

Profit is simple to explain. It's what you earn minus what you paid.
To buy bitcoin you had to use FIAT. So calculate how much fiat you spent, and remove this value from the value of your whole portfolio today.
The final value is your profit.
Of course it's a dynamical value if you didn't cashed it back, because your coins will take or loose value. But you can calculate the current profit now.

There are a lot of apps to visualise your portfolio and your profits.

In the real world I mostly spend fiat so all my portfolios are measured against $. It doesn't look nice at all when you change the settings from $ to BTC ;D

I cash out crypto for fiat regularly -- so I always measure my holdings in fiat value. It's always nice to remember that you haven't made any profit until you cash out. Crypto profits are imaginary until you see fiat in the bank account.

i always measure in btc. Because i believe in value of bitcoin. Because when i buy alts i buy them with btc not usd

But what about when we will be able to pay almost everything with crypto soon? Then you have vashed out the moment you converted to BTC, LTC, ETH or other accepted currency? How will we measure then?

We are still very far from the day when will will be able "to pay almost everything with crypto". That would require a huge crypto acceptance and some kind of stable crypto/fiat pairing. That implies heavy crypto regulations. And that is not yet on the horizon...

I usually measure my profits in fiat, as its the currency i use most often. It's probably best this way, especially if you withdraw often from cryptocurrency into fiat.

I am more comfortable measuring income with bitcoin as the main reference but when we want to calculate "right" then I refer to the dollar

This is the best way to explain it. Once you deduct the outgoings from the income, that's your profit. You can get apps online to help with calculating your profits and so forth.

I think you should use the French currency, because you will eventually have to sell the bitcoins for the French currency. If your bitcoin has been increasing, but the French currency has been declining, what's the point?

I have watched the video and it's quite interesting. The concept of profit measurement in finance is a wide one. Measuring profit with Bitcoin as the standard is also quite appealing. I believe we could avail ourselves with this great lesson. Fiat currency is becoming outdated because the whole world is going digital. Bitcoin is digital and fast. It's a 4th dimension digital currency. Embrace it!

I think we should invest the results of the crypto world into fiat but not completely, there is still a divided into bitcoin and certainly do not forget altcoin, because many altcoin which is beneficial for us.
I personally have shared not only the focus of investment in BTC or altcoin or fiat so everything can be balanced.
(that's in my opinion and my experience)

thanks for your advices..

 Of course measuering with BTC is correct..
 Let me explain you with a sample...
 In jewellery business, if you want to calculate your profit, in the beginning of the year if you started with 1 kg gold, end of the year you calculate again, less is loose, more is gain...
 People in jewellery business never calculate their gain by money!!! Doesnt matter if gold is 100$ or 100k $.....
 So in coinmarket for me Bitcoin is like gold....BTC can be 100k$,this is my +....
 But for me it is not logic to calculate profit by usd...

I think its coming to bitcoins because I think it's right, I buy altcoins to increase profits exactly to bitcoin

Let's all take a step back and not polarise this question into right and wrong.

There are many different ways to measure profit and many forum members have already made their case well.

Personally I measure profit in fiat because that is ultimately what I can spend in day-to-day life, but I fully understand when people want to maintain profits in BTC because they look at it as crypto trading profits.

Society had hundreds of years to determine how to measure length and yet we still have the imperial and metric system... :)

 I measure mine against btc or eth because when i buy the coin, i use btc or eth so i know i earn something from the trade or it was better to leave it in btc because i can earn more. I also have some trade that i measure against fiat like eth and btc because i bought them using fiat.

I measure my profits in percent for definite period of time and in definite currency for example in the equivalent of USD. 14% ETH, 12%BTC I settle this in dollars and see how much I have earned.

People mostly invest in altcoins in order to accumulate more btc so it makes sense then to measure profits in btc, otherwise what is the point in buying up altcoins over btc?

The only time I really take an interest in fiat profit is when I'm down in btc then I can say to myself at least I'm still doing well in fiat.

I measure in Fiat always because i tend to withdraw in fiat too.

I measure my profits of investments as a percent for month or year that I get or lose when the price of definite coin changed. This is a correlation of sum of that I had to the money that I have now.

I measure my profit and loss in terms of bitcoins in a single trade because it is very convenient i'll just compare the initial bitcoin that i have before i bought the coin and bitcoin i have after the i sell that coin but i have a different method measuring my profit/loss ratio for the month i use percentage to measure the profit and loss for the month and convert into dollars sometimes my knowledge in accounting get used in this kind of situations

It depends, when I am trading altcoins with bitcoin, I measure everthing in cryptocurrency and neglect the equivalent value in dollars. It is easier to see if  you made profit or not if you track it with the same currency you traded it.

If I am trading usd/btc then, everything is measured in dollar value.

this is real that most people are make some fiat and investment in altcoin why because more on this is where we can have a good profit the way we have to make it but in other terms of it what is the best for is having bitcoin also then this is where we are now measure our profit of.

I would go with measuring profit against USD as I trade in USD/BTC. Though I would always recommend to invest in BTC as this is one coin which kind of plays hard on the crypto world. I am also into POS, so the way I see it is the current price at this I want to see vs the price I bought the coins and the bonus here is my stake reward, so end of the day I always get more than what I have invested.

Hope this help.

For a ico project, 3x is my expect. As for short- term trading, 50% is my expect. So i like ico better, easy and fruitful.

when you a buy a coin worth .00001 satoshi for 100 pieces and it pumps to .00003 you have clearly a 200% profit if you sell it right a way do not measure your profits in usd measure it in satoshi because our goal is to trade alts to get more btc thats why you need to calculate it in sats.

I measure the profit from rising market prices if the price is always up I will be faster to invest so that in the future I get more profits because the price is steadily increasing.

I usually evaluate profitability when investing in altcoin by converting the bitcoin value at the time of investment and when I sold it. If you buy altcoin at a low price and you sell it when it goes up, while the bitcoin also increases at this point, you will get two profit margins at the same time.

This is universal thumb rule about investment and returns. You will find the traders always following up the price growth in the chart and keep on investing on the bumping crypto currencies. That following the concern the crypto is the matter for all the investors.
I do have sets the price alert for a week of time completely. Once the price bump or dump, I use to get the notification from the site made with it. In my mobile. That is enough to check about mine.

I mean accounting for my finances in both bitcoin and fiat. it's just that I do not at all render anything and lead the table simply to know how my position is. while investing in altcoyne, my cryptofortal fell into bitcoin and grew up in Fiat.

I always measure my profits from trade in againts btc because i used btc to buy it, if i measure it againts usd sometimes it's profit while the value againts btc goes down and that means it's better for me to leave it in btc rather than doing the trade. The only trade that i measure in usd / fiat is bitcoin because i use fiat to buy it at my local exchange.

I measure it from bitcoin because bitcoin prices continue to increase, then you will get more profit if you entrust your investment in bitcoin, because many people believe in bitcoin, because that's the value is always increasing.

It would normally go down if we do always see or check it on bitcoin form since the value had risen up which it would really decrease in value on btc form.This is why i dont really bother at all to see on btc which i do always see on usd because i can able to track on the profits i do made. This is only my own view and habit regarding on my profits. For sure there are still lots of investors who would always stick on btc conversions.

As a matter of fact, it should be calculated according to the legal currency, since you are buying it in French currency, so it is reasonable to calculate the price according to the legal currency.

I think we should measure our investment returns in fiat, but we often hold some of our investments when measuring , we can't sell them all if we want to play in this game .So we can't figure a exact number cuz the price is changing every second.

An experienced investor that has been in the cryoto world for quite some time already will surely be choosing to measure profits in terms of bitcoins. Since it is what we commonly use to invest in altcoins. Bitcoin's price may drop and rise whem you compare it to fiat since it has great volatility. So if you measure profits in bitcoin, you will surely have great insights as to wether you made great profits on a good investment of not.

I measured it in satoshis not in usd,because sats are decentralized it can still grow while fiat like usd has fixed value.

I'll keep on measuring my profits in fiat because that's what I use to sustain my daily life and common expenses. The income generated from mining, staking and trading is converted to fiat to pay for my bills.

If there will come a time when I can pay all my bills directly in crypto without the need of a prior conversion to fiat, them I'll star measuring exclusively in crypto.

Until then, fiat is still the reference for me.

Current portfolio value - initial investment, in USD of course.

Measuring it by percentage is the best way to do so. Measuring gains via Fiat conversion doesn't accurately say how well you did on your trades.

If you aim to get more BTC as many as you can you should measure it in satoshis instead of fiat.

In my opinion, it should be denominated in French currency, because I am buying the cryptocurrency via fiat money, and eventually I will change it to legal coin, so I should use the legal coin to calculate it.

My aim is to have more btc's not to gain more usd,because satoshi flactuates and usd doesnt.

Myself I measure profits in USD. It's easier for me to monitor my money this way. It' harder for me to know how much money I have when there are 14, 89 or 100 BTC in my balance (this was just an example, I don't have that much).

You should measure profit based on bitcoin, not USD or any FIAT when trading. But if when cashing out you should think about FIAT/USD. The price fluctuates a lot so measuring profit in fiat is absolute. But it depends on peoples preference. Some people likes to measure profit based on fiat, so if they do make more btc they end up with less fiat due to price fall. The vise versa applies too.

I think profit should be measured in relation to the amount initially invested.

Calculate every piece of it and multiply it by the value or price. Dont know how to put it right in words though but i have some calculations about how to identify the huge or potential profit from it. If lucky it would be doubled or tripled. Measure it by 1 or the equivalent of every piece of it and multiply it by your target price.