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

[gamerfan]

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 a very good thread. I think it's crucial to pick a 'reference currency' otherwise you will never know if you are gaining or losing, as you already pointed out. Choosing the right currency to be a reference is not so easy though. Consider dollars and other fiat currency are inflationary, so their value decrease as time goes by. Yet Bitcoin is very volatile, so it's difficult to choose BTC as a reference currency as well.

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[Sleepy18]

For me, all of the altcoin can be your reference and also in dollars because now a days all of these cryptocurrent has a dollar value. And their values changes from time to time. So if you choose satoshi as your reference you will know if you gain or not when to convert it to dollar, same as btc to dollar but btc to satoshi has a fix value. If im not mistaken 0.001btc is equal to 100 000 satoshi. So you will know if your satoshi increase its value when bitcoin increases its value. Same goes to other altcoins, the have value in dollar that changes every single day and these altcoin can be convert to other altcoins and also converted to bitcoin. So there's so many reference that you can choose depending on your point of view. What really matters is that if your going to invest on that altcoin and know if your investment increase its value or you lose a certain amount.

[Manrake]

Recently Litecoin upped about 50% in usd price so I felt a little bad because I had just traded litcoin for bitcoin thinking that bitcoin would have I faster increase in the long run.
But then when looking at the litecoin price chart I see that the price in bitcoin for one litecoin has steadily been going down the last three months, which means I've been getting more litcoin per bitcoin if I'm using bitcoin as a reference. So If I've understood It right, if one litecoin becomes cheaper and cheaper to buy in bitcoins as time pass by then that means that bitcoin is actually increasing in value faster than litecoin?

[olazet1993]

Just compare with the price , i usually compare with the USD price to spot how much i made.

[ForeverSmall]

it easy it only math man
example : you have 1 bitcoin and its worth 15k$ today , tomorrow it worth 16k$ => you profit 1k$ in USD
when you want to calculate profit in something just change all of them in to USD

[quangnm]

I usually take profit by both BTC and USD, i spilited my investment into 2 different exchanges. So decrease risk of holding coin

[bribed]

For me its always important to look at my initial investment versus my current investment value. As the initial investment was most of the time done via Bitcoin, as most markets for alts are BTC / alt, it makes no sense to look at the dollar value there. Some people disagree, but thats how I judge my investments. With the current rally of Bitcoin my overall profits have nearly vanished from this perspective (clearly had too much alts), but USD wise Im still in good profit, but as I dont plan to cash out to fiat anytime soon, I just measure it in BTC and therefore Im way in a loss compared to have just held on my BTC that I initially had.

[3philong]

For me, I always want to increase my satoshi number. Thus, the increase in profit is the increase in the number of satoshi

[xwshamim]

I think fully your descision in which way you want to.make profit but I think you should count your profit on satoshi then you ll be profitable in both way in $$ more and also your satoshi increasing means your investment is getting double and also btc price will move thus you ll make a great profit.

[ausbit]

Just compare with the price , i usually compare with the USD price to spot how much i made.

You need to maintain a record in which you have you list down all the details regarding buying of the bitcoins which you have in your wallet. Analyze the market price whenever you want to know whether you are going in profit or loss.

Compare the current market price of bitcoin with that amount at which you bought those bitcoins. Taking the difference in between will help you know the current statistics.

[KCR]

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.

Where can you see the satoshis?

[KCR]

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.

I am not able to look at the buy price of the alt coins after a few days on major exchanges like Binance?

Is there any way that I can look at the buy price and the current price and calculate the profit based on those prices? Please do let me know.

[pure_happiness_inside]

In money management terms, I think of BTC as the market, and gaining in terms of BTC is considered outperforming the market. It may also be sensible to think of the market as a mix of BTC and ETH

[jerry0]

when you say satoshi, you mean btc right?  Im curious what do most people here look at in terms of profit?  I mean shouldnt usd be what you should be looking at?

[gumgumok]

This would be my first message here. As you would understand, i jumped into cryptocurrency world very late.
I started to buy little bit btc and trading with some altcoins 3 weeks ago. I ended up reading this thread :p Because i noticed even some altcoins i invested raised since my start point, at the end my money (which i check usd equivalent) didnt go up well.

First of all, the main reason seems to be transferring and trading process (i am not using wallet yet since i want to learn more about this world first). The fee i paid to cex.io while transferring my main money from bank account, buying some btc or eth from cex.io (which also has fee), transferring by btc to binance (also transfer fee which is 0.01 btc), trading with some altcoins (some small fee in binance). And if want to cashout my profit, i need to do reverse process which will lower my profit more and unless i really don't invest and gain big profit, i will have no real profit in my bank account.

About the main topic which is this thread about it is also tricky for me. I really don't know how to make profit even my coins raise
Because lets say the xrp i have raised 40% in usd or in btc since i bought. But what does that mean? btc might get lowered in the meantime comparing to usd. So if i want to cashout my profit, i see there is no difference in usd even xrp raised 40%. And considering the fees for converting xrp to btc, transferring to cex.io, withdrawing as usd will make me losing money even.

i know i wrote in complicated way since i am confused a lot about all this :p

[Scrible]

Only Bitcoin can be compared to cash.  All other coins must use satoshi.
 
The dollar price is calculated from Bitcoin's price.  The only way to know if your coin went up is to look at Satoshi.
 
When people compare alt coins with price, I understand that they do not understand.

[sloiz]

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 a very good thread. I think it's crucial to pick a 'reference currency' otherwise you will never know if you are gaining or losing, as you already pointed out. Choosing the right currency to be a reference is not so easy though. Consider dollars and other fiat currency are inflationary, so their value decrease as time goes by. Yet Bitcoin is very volatile, so it's difficult to choose BTC as a reference currency as well.

Many thanks for this interesting thread. These are curious days when the streets are red with blood. 😲
This thread may be highly relevant. My thoughts...
Checking my portfolio in the USD valuation tells me I'm down plenty in these first weeks of 2018.
The BTC value however has gone up noticeably more, of course due to the 'correction'. So why should I look at the USD value? To see that I'm losing fiat? That's ridiculous. I got into this game because I hope and believe btc has a bright future ahead. I'm not talking about using it to buy coffees or pizzas with it but that it will be, as it already more or less is now, a reserve world currency, which, as the gold standard once before, will be a true store of value. So consequently I'm keeping a close look at the amount of BTC I'm accumulating while believing BTC will bounce back eventually. I'm in it for the long run. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the future of some altcoins as well but I believe eventually they will be the silvers, bronzes and coppers of the gold Bitcoin.
Please share your thoughts!

[Oilacris]

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 a very good thread. I think it's crucial to pick a 'reference currency' otherwise you will never know if you are gaining or losing, as you already pointed out. Choosing the right currency to be a reference is not so easy though. Consider dollars and other fiat currency are inflationary, so their value decrease as time goes by. Yet Bitcoin is very volatile, so it's difficult to choose BTC as a reference currency as well.

Many thanks for this interesting thread. These are curious days when the streets are red with blood. 😲
This thread may be highly relevant. My thoughts...
Checking my portfolio in the USD valuation tells me I'm down plenty in these first weeks of 2018.
The BTC value however has gone up noticeably more, of course due to the 'correction'. So why should I look at the USD value? To see that I'm losing fiat? That's ridiculous. I got into this game because I hope and believe btc has a bright future ahead. I'm not talking about using it to buy coffees or pizzas with it but that it will be, as it already more or less is now, a reserve world currency, which, as the gold standard once before, will be a true store of value. So consequently I'm keeping a close look at the amount of BTC I'm accumulating while believing BTC will bounce back eventually. I'm in it for the long run. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the future of some altcoins as well but I believe eventually they will be the silvers, bronzes and coppers of the gold Bitcoin.
Please share your thoughts!

First of all we are on this forum because we do believe on bitcoin mainly but talking already on full adoption then this thing would really be just a dream.Seeing on current issues and news then i would say its not really possible anymore but somehow it do manage to increase its price.All of us are hoping to hold lots of btc because we do see its potential.Back to topic when i do profit i do usually look on btc value too, im not seeing USD rate since it do change anytime.

[sebastianpenguen]

Just compare with the price , i usually compare with the USD price to spot how much i made.

You need to maintain a record in which you have you list down all the details regarding buying of the bitcoins which you have in your wallet. Analyze the market price whenever you want to know whether you are going in profit or loss.

Compare the current market price of bitcoin with that amount at which you bought those bitcoins. Taking the difference in between will help you know the current statistics.

I always take notes if I purchase coins from exchange platforms. I write down my buying satoshi values so I don't forget them. I also write down usd value of my buy orders to calculate my profit in the best way.

[patt0]

I used to look into dollar value but I don't think you should do that. I was trading and seeing my $ value increase, but my bitcoin value was decreasing. We were in complete bull market at that time and I was happy, thinking I was doing great trade. Then I realized that if I had just hold my bitcoins during those bull runs, I would have much more $ than what I was actually making. So although I was seeing my bankroll increase, I was actually losing money, because I was losing bitcoin.

I think you should always check you profit in bitcoins. Notice that this works for a bear market as well. If bitcoin is falling, you should of course sell it to dollars. By doing this, you will see that although your dollar stack might be the same, your bitcoin value is actually increasing again, because if you buy at a lower price you will get more bitcoins out of it. You will know you are doing great in a bear market when you see both your bitcoin and $ bankroll increasing, and you can do this if you manage to buy the oversold bounces.