I am tracking the trades for my Bitcoin Trading Experiment, with the help of a free, open-source application called Portfolio Performance. Since last week, I have figured out a way to import these trades instead or recording each one of them manually in the software. You can take a look at: How do you track your crypto? Portfolio Performance to the rescue. for more information about my setup.
There are 3 steps required for this process:
1. export the trades from Coinbase,
2. do some field matching in Portfolio Performance and
3. import and check the results.
These steps will actually work for any other csv or text file that contains a list of your trades, deposits, withdrawals or general transactions. This works thanks to the magic matching feature that is available in Portfolio Performance.
Export the trades from Coinbase
You can go to pro.coinbase.com - Account icon - Statements – Generate – Fills to get a file with your own transactions.
In the Product field you can select a specific pair like BTC/EUR or just leave All products to get every crypto pair trade in your report file
Download the file sent to your email
Fields matching
Open Portfolio Performance, choose File – Import – CSV Files (comma-separated values) and select the file you downloaded earlier.
Select Type of data: Portfolio Transactions
Delimiter: Comma (,) and now you should see your trades in the preview ready to be imported.
In order to import these trades, we must first tell the software what exactly these columns represent. We should at least map the required fields: Shares, Date and Value.
Shares is actually the quantity of the trade, so double-click on the size column, select Field: Shares and assign the correct Format
I did the same for the following columns as well:
product -> Ticker Symbol
side -> Type
created at -> Date
fee -> Fees
total -> Value
So in the final step the preview window should look something like this
Press Next and choose the Cash Account and the Securities Account that you want these trades to be imported into
As long as no Error Messages appear at the bottom you are good to go! Click on Finish to import.
Check imported trades
You should now see all these trades showing in the Transactions tab under the specific crypto Security (Bitcoin EUR in my case), in the Deposit account (Coinbase) and in the Securities account (Trading Experiment).
One common problem I usually come across, is that I didn't set the correct format while mapping the fields. That's why instead of lets say 0.00243902 BTC I end up seeing an imported trade for 243.902 BTC (if only…). It’s OK, you can select multiple transactions to delete them and start over. To do this just open the Securities Accounts – select your account: Experiment in my case and go to the Transactions tab.
That’s it!
Result
Now you can finally take a look in some of the Reports and see your results. There are various charts, pies and key indicators to study like True Time-Weighted Rate of Return, Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Capital Gains, Realized Capital Gains, Fees, etc. So much information to think upon!
In my case, now I can clearly see how the trading experiment performed in June and July:
I invested 100 euros each month, traded BTC/EUR over and over again for 2 months and ended up with 12.08 profit.
In June the total value of my portfolio was actually in red with -7.8% but in July things got better and I got a return of +10.1%.
During these 2 months, my trading portfolio has gained 1,5%. Not bad for an experiment.
