The price is a choice
There is no official price for most assets. There is a set of prices reported by different sources, and a portfolio total uses one of them.
That means two people can hold identical assets, use defensible sources, and report totals that differ by a percentage. Neither is wrong. The difference is entirely in the input.
Where the sources differ
| Source type | Strength | Where it diverges |
|---|---|---|
| Exchange last price | Matches what you would actually get on that venue | Differ between venues, and in thin books the gap is wide |
| Aggregate index | Smooth, volume-weighted, consistent across venues | Does not reflect any venue you could actually trade on |
| Aggregated from many venues | Broad coverage including small assets | Includes venues you may have no access to, sometimes with poor data |
| Reference price | Stable, published on a schedule | Can be materially behind the market for hours |
None of these is the right answer. They answer different questions, and a portfolio that quotes one while another view quotes another is not in conflict — it is measuring against a different definition.
The live-value problem
A continuously updating total has an unusual property: the number changes while you are reading it.
That matters more for review than for display. Checking whether your portfolio total is correct is impossible if it moves. It also means two screenshots taken a minute apart will not match, which makes them useless as evidence of anything.
Assets that are hard to price
- Thin markets. A token with a small order book can show a last price that no meaningful volume ever traded at. Aggregators smooth this away; venues show it.
- Stablecoins. Usually treated as one dollar and therefore never move. In practice they do, briefly and sometimes by more than expected.
- Wrapped and bridged forms. Frequently have their own price in their own liquidity pool, and it can differ from the underlying for structural reasons.
- Liquid staking receipts. Their price is derived, and derived prices move more slowly than spot in both directions.
- Inactive or wrapped-unlisted assets. The last recorded price may be months old. Some sources display it without indicating that.
Recording a price so it can be checked later
For anything that has to hold up later — a review, a decision, a record — four things go with the number:
- The asset and quantity it applies to
- The price used, in a stated currency
- The source, named specifically
- The timestamp, including timezone
That is a small amount of effort and it is the difference between a figure you can defend and one you can only assert.
Comparing across sources honestly
When two portfolio figures disagree, the useful question is not which is higher. It is whether they were built from the same inputs.
If both used the same holdings, the same quantities, the same moment and the same source, and the totals still differ, then something is wrong — and it is a real discrepancy worth finding rather than a definitional difference to explain away.
Next: what allocation and performance views show