How do you know when you are in profit? USD or Satoshi?

[elektra]

I am a little confused because I have always looked at the satoshi prices, but sometimes I hear people say that you should look at the dollar value if you are in profit or not. But when you trade at an exchange to BTC all the peaks and vallies are measured in BTC? Should you follow dollar value or satoshi value to know if you are in profit? Or do just have to choose one of them and stick to it? For example if I buy at 0.1 satoshi and now the chart show 0.12 satoshi I think I am in profit? But is that not always the case? I am using cointracking for example to see if I am in profit or not. If I look at BTC value of Doge I am currently in -7% on the coin, but if I switch to dollar I am +0.09%  It is very confusing..

Does it have to do with if you plan to keep your money inside crypto or take it out? If you plan to take it out I guess dollar is more important, but my plan is to stay in crypto for the long term so dollar value is not even important at that point...?

I mean if you buy a coin at 0.1 satoshi and you sell it at 0.2 satochi you have sold in "profit" even if btc would have sunken 90%?

[cellard]

I am a little confused because I have always looked at the satoshi prices, but sometimes I hear people say that you should look at the dollar value if you are in profit or not. But when you trade at an exchange to BTC all the peaks and vallies are measured in BTC? Should you follow dollar value or satoshi value to know if you are in profit? Or do just have to choose one of them and stick to it? For example if I buy at 0.1 satoshi and now the chart show 0.12 satoshi I think I am in profit? But is that not always the case? I am using cointracking for example to see if I am in profit or not. If I look at btc and amp Doge I am currently in -7% on the coin, but if I switch to dollar I am +0.09%  It is very confusing..

Does it have to do with if you plan to keep your money inside crypto or take it out? If you plan to take it out I guess dollar is more important, but my plan is to stay in crypto for the long term so dollar value is not even important at that point...?

I mean if you buy a coin at 0.1 satoshi and you sell it at 0.2 satochi you have sold in "profit" even if btc would have sunken 90%?

Well you have to choose your reference... every price is in reference of something else. If you value BTC more than USD, then you will be happy to make BTC gains. If you care about USD, then you will be happy if your USD go up... it's all about reference, there's no global value.

If you think BTC is a long term winner, then focus on making more BTC and forget about USD fluctuations.

[Iranus]

This belongs more in Trading Discussion.
Most alts are measured and traded dominantly against BTC.  This even applies to the biggest alts like ETH which have fiat pairs as well.

You'll find that the majority of people trading alts are in it for more BTC, and the majority of people trading BTC are in it for more fiat, especially when the price goes up loads like right now.

So it would be most important to measure it against BTC, because crypto profits are mostly to do with the amount of fiat you would have gained in value compared to the amount you would have gained from just holding Bitcoin.  However, this is flexible and could be different in some cases.

[pawel7777]

Depends what your game is and what you care about.

Most would care more about fiat profits, as those represent purchasing power therefore increase/decrease in your wealth. But if your goal was to hold onto bitcoins no matter what for the next X years, and you trade altcoins to accumulate more bitcoins, then fiat movements are irrelevant to you.

In the scenario you described, despite small $ gain, you made a bad call on DOGE and shouldn't be happy about it.

[Haladay]

It is up to you. You select a reference point as usd or btc. Then you consider your profit. Some people look at the net usd they have while some others look at the satoshi they gave. You can be in profit side in either one of them or both of them.

[Gotottack]

Whenever I am trading altcoins in exchanges I only look at my value in terms of Bitcoins not really it's equivalent in USD or any other fiat for that matter. I believe that you shouldn't directly convert your profits into fiat whenever you are computing as the value in fiat changes drastically and you will never know how much you really earned. Bitcoins are stable, it has a dollar value, but it is easier to compute there as you do not factor in the prices of bitcoins every time you have to calculate your earnings vs your initial investment. I hope that made sense.

[KrakAJAX]

Whenever I am trading altcoins in exchanges I only look at my value in terms of Bitcoins not really it's equivalent in USD or any other fiat for that matter. I believe that you shouldn't directly convert your profits into fiat whenever you are computing as the value in fiat changes drastically and you will never know how much you really earned. Bitcoins are stable, it has a dollar value, but it is easier to compute there as you do not factor in the prices of bitcoins every time you have to calculate your earnings vs your initial investment. I hope that made sense.

It's true... when in ALTCOINS you NEED to look at everything in Bitcoin/Satoshi price. It could look like your altcoin doubled, but if Bitcoin tripled in the sae amount of time, you actually lost money from opportunity cost.

[elektra]

Depends what your game is and what you care about.

Most would care more about fiat profits, as those represent purchasing power therefore increase/decrease in your wealth. But if your goal was to hold onto bitcoins no matter what for the next X years, and you trade altcoins to accumulate more bitcoins, then fiat movements are irrelevant to you.

In the scenario you described, despite small $ gain, you made a bad call on DOGE and shouldn't be happy about it.

This is my scenario, I am after to accumilate as much crypto wealth as possible, as I think it will increase and grow over time while the dollar might end up becoming obsolete.  I guess if I thought a bubble was about to pop I would try to get out for a bit, but then I would exchange to theater, not usd... So in my case I should just forget about usd prices and focus on satochi?

But the price of BTC will incluence the ups and downs of other coins very much then or how does that work? Like if a coin goes up in a straight line, but the next day BTC is up a lot, then you would expect that upward trend in the other coin to decline?

[elektra]

Whenever I am trading altcoins in exchanges I only look at my value in terms of Bitcoins not really it's equivalent in USD or any other fiat for that matter. I believe that you shouldn't directly convert your profits into fiat whenever you are computing as the value in fiat changes drastically and you will never know how much you really earned. Bitcoins are stable, it has a dollar value, but it is easier to compute there as you do not factor in the prices of bitcoins every time you have to calculate your earnings vs your initial investment. I hope that made sense.

It's true... when in ALTCOINS you NEED to look at everything in Bitcoin/Satoshi price. It could look like your altcoin doubled, but if Bitcoin tripled in the sae amount of time, you actually lost money from opportunity cost.

What exactly do you mean by "opportunity cost"?

[robelneo]

You have to look both ways in my case if I bought Bitcoin when the dollar was down and after a week the dollar went up against our  currency eventhough bitcoin price did not move I am on profit ,you have to watch both the price of bitcoin and the price of your local currency it's quite tricky and you need a tool like Preev and the dollar to your local currency so you can calculate your profit and lost.

[pawel7777]

This is my scenario, I am after to accumilate as much crypto wealth as possible, as I think it will increase and grow over time while the dollar might end up becoming obsolete.  I guess if I thought a bubble was about to pop I would try to get out for a bit, but then I would exchange to theater, not usd... So in my case I should just forget about usd prices and focus on satochi?

OK. But 'crypto wealth' is a broad term, if you don't define which coins you want to bet on in the long run, you'd be stuck with $ valuation to measure the progress (how else would you know whether 1,000 dickckoin and 50 crapcoin is "more crypto wealth" than 7 shitcoin and 0.05 butttoken?). There's nothing wrong with having $ as a reference, just wanted to clarify.

But the price of BTC will incluence the ups and downs of other coins very much then or how does that work? Like if a coin goes up in a straight line, but the next day BTC is up a lot, then you would expect that upward trend in the other coin to decline?

Why? In simple terms (taking all other factors aside) rallying Bitcoin would most likely even enhance the altcoin's uptrend (in USD terms).

...
What exactly do you mean by "opportunity cost"?

Investopedia: Opportunity cost refers to a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action.

If you bought coin A and doubled your money, but if you had bought coin B instead, you would've tripled it - the difference in gains is your opportunity cost. It's not really a loss though.

[angaper]

I am a little confused because I have always looked at the satoshi prices, but sometimes I hear people say that you should look at the dollar value if you are in profit or not. But when you trade at an exchange to BTC all the peaks and vallies are measured in BTC? Should you follow dollar value or satoshi value to know if you are in profit? Or do just have to choose one of them and stick to it? For example if I buy at 0.1 satoshi and now the chart show 0.12 satoshi I think I am in profit? But is that not always the case? I am using cointracking for example to see if I am in profit or not. If I look at btc and amp Doge I am currently in -7% on the coin, but if I switch to dollar I am +0.09%  It is very confusing..

Does it have to do with if you plan to keep your money inside crypto or take it out? If you plan to take it out I guess dollar is more important, but my plan is to stay in crypto for the long term so dollar value is not even important at that point...?

I mean if you buy a coin at 0.1 satoshi and you sell it at 0.2 satochi you have sold in "profit" even if btc would have sunken 90%?

Well you have to choose your reference... every price is in reference of something else. If you value BTC more than USD, then you will be happy to make BTC gains. If you care about USD, then you will be happy if your USD go up... it's all about reference, there's no global value.

If you think BTC is a long term winner, then focus on making more BTC and forget about USD fluctuations.

I totally agree, although I would assume by mere logic that the main reason to join this world of crypto coins is the the desire acquire bitcoins and set aside fiat money, especially the dollar. So I always consider that I am in profit when at the moment of closing a trade it leaves me with more bitcoins than when I opened it.

[elektra]

Btw, what is happening when the general total market cap goes down but the bitcoin price goes up? If the bitcoin price goes up that must mean more people are flooding in to buy? But how can the general total marketcap go down then?

[BrewMaster]

Btw, what is happening when the general total market cap goes down but the bitcoin price goes up? If the bitcoin price goes up that must mean more people are flooding in to buy? But how can the general total marketcap go down then?

the total market cap is the sum of a couple of hundred altcoins' market cap. and among these altcoins there are so many that have fake market cap. also almost all of them are pump and dumps.
so when they get dumped hard, their prices fall so (market cap = price * supply) goes down. and the bigger their supply is the bigger the drop will be when their price tanks.

[danherbias07]

Keep you mind on the BTC/satoshi profit.
You can easily see the price of BTC but not the altcoins. Sometimes they are hard to find to how much value they are or the exchange rate of each altcoin.
Plus, both are changing in price so why not focus on just earning BTC and let the flow of money just go on.
You can look at it after the profit from satoshis.

[Ayers]

I am a little confused because I have always looked at the satoshi prices, but sometimes I hear people say that you should look at the dollar value if you are in profit or not. But when you trade at an exchange to BTC all the peaks and vallies are measured in BTC? Should you follow dollar value or satoshi value to know if you are in profit? Or do just have to choose one of them and stick to it? For example if I buy at 0.1 satoshi and now the chart show 0.12 satoshi I think I am in profit? But is that not always the case? I am using cointracking for example to see if I am in profit or not. If I look at BTC value of Doge I am currently in -7% on the coin, but if I switch to dollar I am +0.09%  It is very confusing..

Does it have to do with if you plan to keep your money inside crypto or take it out? If you plan to take it out I guess dollar is more important, but my plan is to stay in crypto for the long term so dollar value is not even important at that point...?

I mean if you buy a coin at 0.1 satoshi and you sell it at 0.2 satochi you have sold in "profit" even if btc would have sunken 90%?

you need to look at the value on bitcoin not usd, because if you have 0.01 and you have then 0.02 you made 100% profit, even if the value of bitcoin go down, but this is more true with mining, because you don't acquire bitcoin v ia buying when you mine, if you invest 0.01 with $10, but you gain 0.02 that are worth now $5, you have a loss ther,e but again if the bitcoin increase after that you are not losing anymore

[dothebeats]

Any gains in BTC is also a gain in USD value keep that in mind. There are just some variance in prices in exchanges since there are different activities in different markets.

Btw, what is happening when the general total market cap goes down but the bitcoin price goes up? If the bitcoin price goes up that must mean more people are flooding in to buy? But how can the general total marketcap go down then?

If you want to see the marketcap go down, that means every single altcoin needs to go down including bitcoin. Potentially bitcoin can carry the whole crypto market if it continues booming in price even if the other alts trail behind.

[PancherBitCoin]

Any gains in BTC is also a gain in USD value keep that in mind. There are just some variance in prices in exchanges since there are different activities in different markets.

Btw, what is happening when the general total market cap goes down but the bitcoin price goes up? If the bitcoin price goes up that must mean more people are flooding in to buy? But how can the general total marketcap go down then?

If you want to see the marketcap go down, that means every single altcoin needs to go down including bitcoin. Potentially bitcoin can carry the whole crypto market if it continues booming in price even if the other alts trail behind.

I would not say today that the crypto currency market is suffering some kind of disaster. If you follow the rates on the stock exchange, then any altcoin today shows very well the growth of its prices. As for Bitcoin, This is a snot question and I see that today we will see very good indicators and the course of care will be pleasantly surprised by the prices for the crypto currency.

[hatshepsut93]

Any gains in BTC is also a gain in USD value keep that in mind. There are just some variance in prices in exchanges since there are different activities in different markets.

This is not always true, for example you've closed your altcoin position with 5% profit in BTC, but Bitcoin dropped 10% during that time, than you've actually lost 5.5% of your investments USD value. So, both USD and BTC values of your trade are important. There are actually two methods of trading cryptocurrencies - one is only increasing your BTC value and stacking Bitcoin for long term, and the second is increasing your USD value at the current moment, by selling Bitcoins during peaks, even if it means that you have to close your position on altcoins prematurely. The second method is the most profitable, because you will be getting profit from both altcoin and Bitcoin volatility, but it's very hard to execute on practice and requires big amounts of attention and experience.

[Ewinsane]

I am a little confused because I have always looked at the satoshi prices, but sometimes I hear people say that you should look at the dollar value if you are in profit or not. But when you trade at an exchange to BTC all the peaks and vallies are measured in BTC? Should you follow dollar value or satoshi value to know if you are in profit? Or do just have to choose one of them and stick to it? For example if I buy at 0.1 satoshi and now the chart show 0.12 satoshi I think I am in profit? But is that not always the case? I am using cointracking for example to see if I am in profit or not. If I look at BTC value of Doge I am currently in -7% on the coin, but if I switch to dollar I am +0.09%  It is very confusing..

Does it have to do with if you plan to keep your money inside crypto or take it out? If you plan to take it out I guess dollar is more important, but my plan is to stay in crypto for the long term so dollar value is not even important at that point...?

I mean if you buy a coin at 0.1 satoshi and you sell it at 0.2 satochi you have sold in "profit" even if btc would have sunken 90%?

This is something that depends upon your choice that which one you prefer to choose to compare whether you are in profit or not. Secondly we cannot deny the fact that in the end of a trade we need to convert our profit may be more or less but we need fiat for our routine activities therefore I personally check my profit with the USD.