Anyone who has some (pieces of) bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies and would like to keep an overview of such investments can use a portfolio tracker. In this article, we take a look at Blockfolio, one of the most popular apps for Android.
Are you familiar with the terms ‘fomo’, ‘fud’ and ‘hodl’? Then you have probably already delved into cryptocurrency, where you come across these terms everywhere. Perhaps, like about 700,000 other Dutch people, you have a (piece of a) bitcoin or other crypto or are you considering taking that step. The underlying blockchain technology is developing at lightning speed, but the market is the Wild West (unregulated), so ‘dyor’ is a common disclaimer that we like to repeat: ‘do your own research’. Anyone who ventures into crypto knows that the hardware wallet is the best storage place. But maybe there is also something with a trading platform, called exchange, to trade with. Then you quickly lose the overview. A portfolio tracker is becoming almost indispensable. This shows you which cryptocurrency you have and how much profit (or loss) you have made with it.
1 Installation
There are several apps for tracking your crypto portfolio. Some are free, but often you have to pay extra for more extensive features or even take out a subscription. In this article we look at Blockfolio, one of the most popular apps for this purpose. The app is also one of the few that is completely free and offers more than enough options for most people. There are already more than six million users worldwide.
The app is available for android and for iPhone, but there is no iPad version. When you start the app for the first time, a (short) tour follows. By default, the app adopts the Dutch language, a dark mode and the US dollar as the default currency. You can adjust all this to your preference via the settings (see point 5).
2 Cryptocurrency overview
The main screen gives you an overview of important cryptocurrencies and here you can see your profit or loss at a glance after you have added transactions. You can recognize the cryptocurrency by its abbreviation, such as ‘btc’ for bitcoin and ‘eth’ for ethereum. By turning on the bell behind the coin, you will receive notifications when there is important news about it.
You can also follow the news tab at the bottom where you can update yourself on important developments. On the main screen you can add extra coins via the plus sign. There are more than 8000 cryptocurrencies that you can find almost all through the app. The market icon at the top right takes you to a list of all cryptocurrencies in a sort of ranking with the market capitalization, say the market value of the crypto world. You can also visit coinmarketcap.com for such details.
3 Request details
Are your favorite cryptocurrencies in the list? Then click on one of those coins for more details, divided over various handy tabs. For example, on the first tab you immediately see the price charts in the desired form. Handy if you’re on the go and want a quick update, but in other situations the charts from sites like tradingview.com are of course clearer.
The second tab gives you background information about the team or company behind the cryptocurrency. You will also see an option here to unfollow the cryptocurrency. Also very practical are the alerts that you can set for price changes, such as a change of at least three percent in the last hour, or the passing of a specific price point. Do you want to buy certain cryptocurrencies when the price has dropped significantly? Then you can make an alert for that exact price.
4 Add transactions
As mentioned, you must add your transactions to Blockfolio to be able to see how the finances are doing. Many apps give you the option to sync transactions with an exchange. In practice this does not always work well. If you do not have a lot of transactions, there is little objection to adding them manually. You will find a special tab for this in Blockfolio. The most important details are the trading pair (such as btc/euro) and the price at which you bought the cryptocurrency, in fact the price at that time, in addition to of course the amount you bought. Optionally, also enter the transaction costs for a more accurate representation.
On another tab you can now see exactly how much profit or loss you have made for this cryptocurrency. The app can calculate this because it knows the current price values ​​for the chosen exchange (this sometimes differs) and also your transactions. For example, you can see which costs you have incurred (in fact your deposit or investment), the current market value and your absolute and percentage profit. On the main screen, you’ll see this in an overview for all the coins you’ve added, along with the total value of your portfolio. This helps you, for example, with your strategy to get your investment and possibly some profit.
5 Settings
You can manage your portfolio or add additional portfolios via the settings icon. For each portfolio you can set details, such as the color and the default currency for ‘ordinary’ money. You may want to change this from dollar to euro. Optionally, you can add a connection to an exchange. Bitvavo is just not supported, Binance already is.
If you delve further into the settings, you will also see an option to set a security for access to the app. This prevents others who have access to your smartphone from seeing your portfolio by setting a four-digit PIN code. It is often recommended that you keep your crypto investments secret so that it cannot be misused.
Do you want to share your portfolio with a partner? You can do this by creating an account via the settings screen. This also ensures that you can restore the data if you switch devices. Here too, of course, you have to be careful with this, so as not to make others wiser than necessary!
