Three inputs, and everything else is arithmetic
A portfolio total is not a fact about the market. It is a sum built from what you hold, what those holdings cost, and a price somebody chose.
Most disagreement about portfolio figures is a disagreement about one of those three inputs, not about the arithmetic. Two people looking at the same holdings can report different totals and both be technically correct, because one is using an exchange price and the other an aggregate, or one counts a pending withdrawal and the other does not.
This guide works through the three inputs, the method questions underneath them, and the specific points where portfolio numbers stop matching what the venues report.
Why a spreadsheet stops working
A spreadsheet is genuinely fine for one account held in one asset. It stops working at the point where three things happen at once, which for most people is sooner than expected.
- There is more than one venueBalances stop matching the moment you hold assets in more than one place, because each venue reports only its own.
- Assets are not fungible across venuesThe same token on two platforms is one economic position and two ledger entries. Most totals fail to merge them.
- There are assets that are not simple holdingsLending positions, staked balances, wrapped representations and pending withdrawals sit in a table cell labelled with the token name and are treated as if they were the token. They are not.
None of that makes a spreadsheet wrong. It makes it a place where the assumptions are invisible, which is where the errors come from.
The three numbers a portfolio produces
| Number | What it is | What it is not |
|---|---|---|
| Total value | What the holdings are worth at a chosen price and a chosen moment | What you would receive if you sold everything |
| Cost | The sum of what you actually paid, adjusted for anything received | What the assets are worth now |
| Profit or loss | The difference between the two, once you decide whether unrealised counts | A measure of how well you traded |
Realised and unrealised
Realised profit is the part that happened. You sold, there was a price on both sides, and the difference is settled. Unrealised profit is everything else: the gap between today's value and what you paid for what you still hold.
Some portfolio views show one, some show both, and some show a percentage that silently mixes them. Which convention a view uses matters more than the number it produces, because a percentage without knowing its basis cannot be compared to anything.
Consolidation is the hard part
Adding up balances is trivial. The work is in deciding what counts as the same asset, which movements are internal, and what to do with positions that are not simple holdings.
A tracker that shows one clean total has made all of those decisions. Usually invisibly. The accounts page covers how those decisions are usually made and where they go wrong.
What a good portfolio view shows
- INPUTSHoldings and cost
- Per asset, with the basis each one carries and whether that basis is known.
- VALUATIONPrice source
- Which price, from where, and as at what moment. Without this the total is not comparable.
- RESULTProfit, split
- Realised and unrealised shown separately rather than merged into one percentage.
Who this is for
People holding more than one venue who need a number they can rely on rather than an impression. It is not useful if you hold one asset in one place, because there is nothing to reconcile.
It is also not investment advice. Nothing here says what to hold or what any of this is worth. It is about measurement.
Next: how profit is actually worked out