Crypto Profit Calculator

Fees are charged twice

Profit is not the exit price minus the entry price. You pay a fee to buy and another to sell, and both come out of the position. At 0.2 percent each way that is 0.4 percent before any price movement, which means the break-even price is above your entry, not at it. On leveraged or high-frequency trading this is the dominant cost and the main reason a strategy that looks profitable on paper loses money in practice.

The break-even calculation

To break even, the exit price must cover the entry price plus both fees. With a buy fee and a sell fee each expressed as a rate, break-even is roughly the entry price multiplied by one plus the buy fee, divided by one minus the sell fee. Spread and slippage sit on top of that and are invisible in the fee schedule.

Percentage gains and losses are asymmetric

A 50 percent loss requires a 100 percent gain to recover. A 90 percent loss requires 900 percent. This asymmetry is the single most important arithmetic fact in trading and it is consistently underweighted, because a loss and the recovery it demands are described in the same units while being wildly different magnitudes.

Cost basis and which coins you sold

If you bought at several prices, your gain depends on which purchase you are deemed to have sold. FIFO assumes the oldest first; specific identification lets you choose, where permitted. The choice changes the taxable gain substantially, and most jurisdictions require consistency rather than picking per trade. Some, including the UK with its share-pooling rules, mandate an entirely different method.

Crypto-to-crypto trades are usually taxable

Swapping one token for another is a disposal in most tax systems, even though no fiat currency moved and nothing reached your bank. The gain is measured in your local currency at the time of the swap. This surprises people every year, particularly those who traded actively and hold nothing but tokens when the bill arrives.

Unrealised is not realised

A position showing a large gain is worth nothing until sold, and the tax event only occurs on disposal. Conversely, a paper loss provides no relief until realised. Any profit figure on an open position is a snapshot of a price you may never actually get.