Must have Trading Tools
When I first started investing in crypto back in the day, I used to do it so haphazardly I opened numerous different exchange accounts and downloaded endless cool wallets to stash my absolute bizarre of unique altcoins. The problem is I pretty soon started losing track of all the crypto I owned. In fact I'm pretty sure that I still hold some coins on some old paper wallets stuck in my drawer. However things change for the better when I started using a portfolio tracking and analytics app. It was like night and day. Therefore it’s time to share with you some of the best crypto tools out there. In this chapter I'll cover the top five portfolio management tools. The pros and cons of each and I'll give some top tips on how I personally use each of them. Let's get started on my number one crypto portfolio tool is the ever popular Blockfolio app. If you are new to crypto, the chances are that you are having a hard time working out exactly how your portfolio is doing. Blockfolio basically solves that problem of price tracking and having to go through Coinmarketcap with a calculator. To get this app, please visit https://blockfolio.com/ Once you've downloaded the app from the Blockfolio website, you can add coins in just a few taps by clicking the big plus sign at the bottom of the screen. Next you'll have the option to connect an exchange account which will import your transaction history for you. Or you can search for the coin you hold and click that crypto to add it to your portfolio. You'll then be asked to manually enter in the number of coins you bought and you can key in the price you got on the exchange tot. Bash that save by the transaction button and you would have added the coin to your Blockfolio. It only takes a few clicks. Then it's merely a matter of rinse and repeat for all the other cryptocurrencies that you own and you should have your portfolio set up and tracked on Blockfolio. Why bother going through all this hassle? Well Blockfolio will automatically refresh and tell you the new value of your crypto portfolio every few seconds. It is great for those especially who wants to know what the crypto markets are doing every few seconds. This will allow you to know the true value of your crypto portfolio at any given time and the app looks pretty flashy too. When it comes to Blockfolio’s other features there is a pretty handy news function that brings together the latest crypto related articles from some of the biggest publishers all in one place. So this makes it a lot easier to keep up to date with the latest crypto news. Or to put that another way if you're into buying the rumor and selling the news then you can use the Blockfolio app snooze function to help you with that trade. Blockfolio also has what they call their signals section. Not to be confused with trading signals. In a nutshell crypto projects push out announcements over Blockfolio signals and you'll get a message if you have that coin added to Blockfolio. What I have found is that for those projects that use Blockfolio signal service, only tend to send out the most important updates here. That saves you a bunch of time hunting through a project's numerous Twitter posts to find that super important bit of news. Finally, Blockfolio has markets section. This is basically a version of Coinmarketcap which displays key price data and market cap figures. If I click on Ethereum for example, you can see a quick chart of the price for every coin. Every coin also has a profile page. Here you'll get an overview of the coin the consensus method used, the type of token it is and what it's used for. If you scroll down, you'll find important links to the project's white paper, github, website and socials. I find that pretty useful when I'm doing a bit of crypto research on the go. There's also a plethora of additional data at your fingertips in this section of Blockfolio. This includes things like the order books and trade history on major exchanges the coin is listed on. One feature that I like to ensure I have activated is called “price alerts”. What this means is if the coin changes in value by 5% in an hour then you'll get a push notification sent to your phone. That's pretty useful to know if you're waiting to buy the dip, sell a pump or if you're trying to monitor an open position. In summary I really think Blockfolio is an essential must-have tool for anyone serious about crypto. It simply takes the complexity out of monitoring your portfolio value, scouting new coins and keeping up to date with the latest crypto news. And it's absolutely free too, so there are no excuses not to try it out.
My next top crypto portfolio tool is called Altpocket. The tool is available for both mobile and desktop and you can use it as a crypto portfolio tracking tool, similar to Blockfolio. On your profile page you click the little plus button and add a coin in a very similar way to Blockfolio. Then you'll be given the option to auto sync your transactions from a crypto exchange or at the menu. If you are going down the manual route, you just need to key in your transaction details, hit that Add button and rinse and repeat until you've added all your coins. You'll then see your entire portfolio in the profile section of your old pocket account. That is all well and good however it's not the main value Altpocket has to offer. If you hit the best performance bar under top lists then, this will bring up the top performing traders on Altpocket according to their weekly monthly or quarterly trading performance. You can then click on their profile to see what coins they hold, the percentage weightings and see the trades they've made recently. With Altpocket you can essentially follow the top performing traders, get notifications when they make a trade and meet other traders on the Altpocket social platform. So if you've always wondered what other people are buying or selling wanted to copy trade for free or just concentrate a truly terrible trader, then Altpocket is a crypto portfolio tool you really should have in your locker. If you want to try it out for yourself you should visit the following link: https://altpocket.io/
Moving on to the next essential crypto portfolio tool I've got is called the Delta app. In a nutshell, Delta is a mobile crypto portfolio manager tool, much like Blockfolio. It connects with wallets and crypto exchanges to import your transactions and sends you those push notifications to alert you to the latest price movements of those coins you hold. So that means you'll have to decide whether to go up with Delta or Blockfolio. The app looks and functions very much like Blockfolio and if you want to input those crypto transactions, it works in a very similar way. Delta also has its own version of Coinmarketcap where you can check out the latest price action in the crypto sphere. When you click into a coin you'll see general data on the coin be able to view your trading activity see price alerts and order book data. Delta also has a crypto news aggregator section which will help keep your finger on the pulse of them crypto markets. There is truly not too much difference between Delta and Blockfolio and you'll be perfectly fine with either option. But Blockfolio was the first tracking app I ever used and Blockfolio leads the way when it comes to adding new features like Blockfolio signals, which Delta later cloned by launching Delta Direct. Moreover Blockfolio does seem to still be leading the way when it comes to innovation in the crypto tracking industry and you might rather get those shiny new things first than be left hanging. If you are now shore whether to go with Delta or Blockfolio, why not try them both out and see which one you personally prefer. They are free after all. If you want to give Delta for a spin then visit the following link: https://delta.app/en
My next pick is called Messari. Although you can't really track your portfolio with it, I honestly think Messari is the best tool out there when it comes to crypto data aggregation. An essential service that helps you scout those hidden gems to add to your portfolio. In crypto, knowledge is power so when it comes to a data-driven approach to evaluating different crypto currencies or just trying to use data to make better trading decisions, then Messari is a tool you need to be looking at. It gives you numerous options to see what is trending in the space to find new coins and evaluate them. To get this tool visit https://messari.io/
If you head over to the Messari’s screen then there are tons of ways you can sort coin information by clicking the columns and filters button. This will then bring up the filters panel which allows you to filter coins by things like liquid marketcap, stock to flow, on chain data metrics, sector coin category, social media stats and a whole lot more. You can get access to a ton of data filters for free, however there is some data that is hidden behind a pay-wall and to access that it will set you back $25 per month. But I don't think many people truly appreciate how useful it is to be able to sort different crypto projects by sector. With just a few clicks you can find all the smart contract platforms, stable coins, scaling solutions, payment platforms and so on. you can even put a filter on a filter and say “I don't want to trade a tiny market cap coin or anything that is a liquid” and Messari gives you the option to easily pull up that list of coins. Or, if you're a Pro altcoiner’ then you can solely look at micro cap projects. Another thing is great about Messari is that they take a pretty cautious view when it comes to reporting things like the trade volume. It's pretty well-known in crypto that there are numerous exchanges accused of pushing out fake trading volume in order to gain Coinmarketcap ratings and grab the attention of traders. What Messari have done is also build a list of what they deemed the ten most trustworthy exchanges in crypto. Here you can also have a look at what Messari term real volume or just look at the reported volume from every exchange. Another cool set of stats I want to share with you on Messari is that you can get the all-time high price for all crypto assets and what is termed “the cycle low”. This is basically the lowest price the crypto has reached after setting an all-time high. So with Bitcoin the all-time high was around 20K and since then the lowest price it traded at was about 3.1K. All that is pretty useful data when it comes to determining long term bullish trends reaching lower highs. In short the way you can use Messari is to help create that short list of coins in a certain sector and with that risk profile you then typically want to see how the coin is priced today and compare it versus the all-time high and cycle low to get to a feeling of whether you are getting a decent price. From there you can dive deeper into the project and do your research before deciding what coin you want to finally add to your portfolio.
My next pick for the best crypto portfolio tool is going to be cointracking. The way I like to think about coin tracking is that it's a crypto portfolio one-stop shop. It's got both mobile and browser-based options and offers both a paid and free version. Basically manual exchange CSV imports are pretty straightforward and fast. So the chances are that most people will never need to opt for any of the paid packages. This tool basically supports over 7,000 crypto currencies and integrates with several exchanges wallets. One really awesome feature is that you can set up coin tracking to actually watch your crypto wallets for incoming and outgoing transactions. That's pretty useful if you hate the idea of having to check your wallets every few hours to see if that transaction has come in. The Cointracking dashboard may not be the nicest looking one out there but it certainly does give you the most data. Having all this information in one place should certainly help you make better and more informed buying or selling decisions. You can also pull reports for realized and unrealized gains or losses. This is set by default to something called the “first in first out” method. But you can change the setting if you wish. The reason why this matters is that if you're a law-abiding champed, you'll be concerned about working out how much tax you need to pay. Another thing that the bean counters seem to always want to know is the average purchase price for each cryptocurrency. Cointracking makes this simple by automatically generating a report for this. I also find this type of report pretty useful when I want to work out how much of my initial investment in dollar terms I need to withdraw from a coin to let the rest right. I have no idea what the tax laws are in your country and you might also leave the numbers counting to your accountant. But if you do make it to the land of “Lambo money” then you'll have to generate a tax report. By upgrading to one of Cointracking's paid plans you can get access to the do-it-yourself tax report generator. If you do use your own account the report will save money on those accountancy fees. These types of reports make it much easier for your financial guide to work out what's been happening. I am a fan of Cointracking but I do realize that it's certainly not for everyone. Basically if you're making less than 100 trades a year then I doubt you'll get any value from the paid for plan and you're best off sticking with Blockfolio or Delta. Yet if you are doing a tons of trades and likely to have to submit tax reports, then I go as far as saying that coin tracking is essential. If you want to check out this tool please visit https://cointracking.info/
In summary, I know first-hand that it isn't easy to manage a portfolio and make the right moves in crypto. However keeping on top of your crypto investments is a hell of a lot easier with the right tools in your locker. What I would urge you to do is try out all these great crypto portfolio tools for free and see which ones are useful to you and actually save you time. Knowledge is power and having that bigger picture of what's happening with your portfolio will help you make even smarter crypto decisions.
