I was psyched to see the recent addition of support for cryptocurrency. I had previously had all my crypto securities marked as "Other" for type and "Unclassified" for asset class, and obviously no quotes download. I started testing on a couple of them by changing the type and asset class to cryptocurrency. When doing so, I noticed that Quicken was performing a search (as I typed) for something that matched my security name and symbol. Previously I didn't use the symbol field since it didn't matter, and I could write whatever I wanted for name because it also was not linking to anything external. So, for example, I wrote "Ethereum (crypto) ETH" for my name so it gave me intel for my own purposes.
The first thing I noticed was that Quicken's symbol for almost all crypto is "^XYZUSD". For example Ethereum is ^ETHUSD. The "security name" has the format "XYZ - USD". For example Ethereum is "Ethereum - USD". I assumed this format has something to do with what it needs in order to map that security to whatever external source it is using to pull quotes from. (i.e., the actual symbol is simply "ETH", but Quicken doesn't use that, it uses "^ETHUSD")
I also noticed that several cryptocurrencies simply couldn't be found by Quicken - so my assumption is that some crypto will still need to be tracked and quotes updated manually. Example: Mantle
So I converted my Securities list of about 50 crypto all over to type - cryptocurrency and asset class - cryptocurrency, and located all the crypto Quicken could find and also updated to the name and symbol format that it seemed to demand (as mentioned above).
The next thing I noticed was that as soon as I went to do an "Update all accounts" event, it hosed up the update feature - endless spinning and ultimately requires a force quit of the application. My assumption was that it couldn't handle something in the cryptocurrency securities I had just converted to Quicken formatting for security type, name, symbol, asset class. I don't know where it is pulling this data from, but perhaps it just isn't available for some, and then instead of returning a value of "not available" or similar, it just keeps churning endlessly.
To solve this (because I still want quotes downloaded for stocks, etc.) I went to the Security window column "Download quotes" and unchecked all of the cryptocurrency. Oddly enough, when I went back to do an "Update all accounts" it went back to updating all accounts successfully (i.e., green check mark) and about a handful (about 12) of the cryptocurrencies even though they were unchecked for download quotes, they are still updating! It was enough to tell me that there are some glitches here.
In summary, I'm happy that Quicken for Mac has now begun "supporting" crypto, but as with any venture into new territory, it seems there are some bugs that need to be worked out. I called customer support (Quicken Premium account), who logged my observations, and encouraged me to also submit this to the community, monitored by Quicken, so there is a written support for what I'm seeing here. I hope these acute observations are described well-enough (I'm not great at explaining in writing what is happening on the screen!) and that it can lead to some "aha" moments for the Quicken software development team who may be able to go in and fix some things they didn't realize were happening. Of course, a quotes download feature for cryptocurrency will only be as good for the customer as it actually works, which so far is limited and actually hoses up the software even further requiring force quit.
Best,
Scott
