How do you recommend handling purchase of bitcoin? Investment or Account?

Recently purchased some bitcoin and wondering how to enter it into Quicken

Best Answer

  • NotACPA
    NotACPA SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Answer ✓
    The basic problem with holding virtual currencies within Q is that Q can only carry prices to 6 decimal places for an investment ... and many (most?  all?) virtual currencies require 8 or more decimal places.
    So, either route will have shortcomings because of this. Your best bet might be to carry the virtual currency in it's own investment account ... and just accept that Q's numbers will never be completely accurate for this holding.

    Q user since February, 1990. DOS Version 4
    Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Business & Personal
    Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP

Answers

  • NotACPA
    NotACPA SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Answer ✓
    The basic problem with holding virtual currencies within Q is that Q can only carry prices to 6 decimal places for an investment ... and many (most?  all?) virtual currencies require 8 or more decimal places.
    So, either route will have shortcomings because of this. Your best bet might be to carry the virtual currency in it's own investment account ... and just accept that Q's numbers will never be completely accurate for this holding.

    Q user since February, 1990. DOS Version 4
    Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Business & Personal
    Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP

  • splasher
    splasher SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    One problem as an investment is that the precision of share qty (6 digits) isn't considered to be enough, so your #s will never be correct.

    -splasher using Q continuously since 1996
    - Subscription Quicken - Win11 and QW2013 - Win11
    -Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list

  • K-Bob
    K-Bob Member ✭✭
    So you recommend setting up an Investment account just for crypto? rather than a spending account
  • splasher
    splasher SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    K-Bob said:
    So you recommend setting up an Investment account just for crypto? rather than a spending account
    I did not say that, I said that the 6 digit precision of investment qtys is not enough for accurate numbers.

    -splasher using Q continuously since 1996
    - Subscription Quicken - Win11 and QW2013 - Win11
    -Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list

  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited February 2021
    Even though the other answers are "more complete" as far as stating Quicken's shortcomings in this area I would like to answer the question directly.

    Account vs investment.

    Account implies using the cash balance.  And in any account that is going to be limited to 2 digits after the decimal point.

    Investments are limited to 6 digits after the decimal point.
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    This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/
  • I use an investment account to track my bitcoin holdings, and I have a workaround for Quicken’s inability to deal with bitcoin’s 8-digit precision. Bitcoin can also be tracked in “satoshis” (1 BTC = 1e8 satoshi) or in “millibitcoin” (mBTC = 1/1000 BTC). (See “Mastering Bitcoin” by Andreas Antonopoulos for more detail on this.)

    If you track millibitcoin (mBTC) in Quicken, you can track down to the satoshi with no truncation of bitcoin balances. I download my purchases in .csv format from Coinbase, do the adjustments on a spreadsheet (convert BTC to mBTC and $/BTC to $/mBTC), and enter them in an investment account dedicated to bitcoin purchases. (Tracking in satoshis doesn’t work in Quicken, as you have a problem with fractional dollar amounts being truncated.)

    To track historical prices, I created a security called “millibitcoin” with the symbol “mBTC”. I download historical BTC prices from Yahoo finance in a .csv file, perform the BTC to mBTC conversions in a spreadsheet, and import them into Quicken manually.

    See: How do I import data into Quicken for Windows?
    • See: Import security prices from your brokerage firm's website using a .CSV file
    • Format: ABC, 123.456, 12/31/02
    • Historical BTC prices: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/history?p=BTC-USD

    It takes some manual effort, but it can be done. I put in the effort because I wanted to use Quicken to track capital gains across different tranches. Hope this helps.