Thank you for your fast reply Martin,
My objective by using beancount on crypto is to be able to track profit and
losses. Eventually I trade and I would like to be able to record that also.
I guess this falls into the speculative investment category. I have looked
up in the forum and in fact I build this test file from that.
I could sketch a rough version of a module that is able to fetch the values:
(.env3) > $ bean-price -e USD:coinmarketcapsource/ETH --no-cache
2017-11-20 price ETH
358.93000000000000682121026329696178436279296875 USD
(.env3) > $ bean-price -e USD:coinmarketcapsource/NEO --no-cache
2017-11-20 price NEO
40.57000000000000028421709430404007434844970703125 USD
(.env3) > $ bean-price -e USD:coinmarketcapsource/GAS --no-cache
2017-11-20 price GAS
24.309999999999998721023075631819665431976318359375 USD
What it is still not clear is how this ties up to have a general overview
of the portfolio. From what I understood on the the bean-price
documentation, I should be able to do something like:
(.env3) > $ bean-price portfolio.beancount
And expect something to happen but nothing happens. Could you please point
me into the right direction?
Thank you very much.
On Monday, November 20, 2017 at 4:24:07 AM UTC-2, Martin Blais wrote:
>
> Search the mailing-list for bitcoin or BTC, you'll find related
> discussions.
>
> Generally the problem with tracking bitcoins with Beancount is that
> Bitcoins tend to be used BOTH as a speculative "investment" and as a
> currency (e.g., to buy things).
> If you want to think of it like an investment you want to track cost basis
> to compute returns... which makes it more difficult to use as a currency.
> If you use it like a currency, then you don't use cost basis but then you
> can't compute returns against USD (*) or your home currency.
> Anyhow, there's no great solution that buys you the best of both worlds.
> To be frank, there hasn't been much thought on making this a first-class
> use case, Bitcoin is still very much an experiment, and personally I think
> the blockchain has no future in its incarnation as a currency (but that is
> a much longer discussion). Beancount does work for it, but as mentioned,
> the best compromise is to segregate the accounts where you hold it for
> value speculation and the accounts where you might use it against
> expenses... separate accounts, one which tracks returns, the other which
> doesn't.
>
> As far as creating your own price fetcher, you have to use the source,
> there isn't much of it and it's all under here:
> https://bitbucket.org/blais/beancount/src/tip/beancount/prices/
>
>
>
>
> (*) Maybe one day I'll implement the "currency accounts" method
> automatically so you can have a bit of tracking of profits without
> explicitly entering cost basis, at least in aggregate. I mean this:
> http://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/tutorial.html
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 7:24 PM, Vonpupp <[email protected] <javascript:>>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Congratulations on beancount. I am new to it but I think it is an amazing
>> software, therefore I would like to take the most advantage of it. This is
>> actually my first message on the forum.
>>
>> I would like to use beancount with cryptocurrencies. I have may doubts
>> but I prefer to take one step at a time. What I would like to be able to do
>> first is to be able to see the my portfolio value at the present time. For
>> instance, let's assume the following file:
>>
>> ; -*- mode: org; mode: beancount; coding: utf-8; fill-column: 400; -*-
>> ;
>> ; Cheatsheet
>> ;
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M4GwF6BkcXyVVvj4yXBJMX7YFXpxlxo95W6CpU3uWVc/edit
>>
>> option "title" "Crypto"
>> option "operating_currency" "ETH"
>> option "operating_currency" "GAS"
>> option "operating_currency" "LTC"
>> option "operating_currency" "NEO"
>>
>> plugin "beancount.plugins.book_conversions"
>> "Assets:Crypto:ETH,Income:Capital-gains"
>>
>> ;* Equity
>> ;2017-11-01 open Equity:Opening-Balances
>>
>> * Account declarations
>> ; Account1
>> 2017-08-18 open Assets:Crypto:ETH:Account1 ETH
>> 2017-08-18 open Assets:Crypto:LTC:Account1 LTC
>> ; Account2
>> 2017-08-18 open Assets:Crypto:ETH:Account2 ETH
>> ; Exchange
>> 2017-08-18 open Assets:Crypto:GAS:Exchange GAS
>> 2017-08-18 open Assets:Crypto:NEO:Exchange NEO
>>
>> 2017-08-18 open Expenses:Crypto:ETH:Balance ETH
>> 2017-08-18 open Expenses:Crypto:GAS:Balance GAS
>> 2017-08-18 open Expenses:Crypto:LTC:Balance LTC
>> 2017-08-18 open Expenses:Crypto:NEO:Balance NEO
>>
>> * Income
>> 2017-08-18 open Income:Capital-gains
>>
>> * Expenses
>> 2017-08-18 open Expenses:Financial:Commisions:USD
>>
>> * Transactions
>> 2017-11-19 * "Opening balance: Account1"
>> Assets:Crypto:ETH:Account1 5.12561083 ETH
>> Assets:Crypto:LTC:Account1 7.58990978 LTC
>> Expenses:Crypto:ETH:Balance -5.12561083 ETH
>> Expenses:Crypto:LTC:Balance -7.58990978 LTC
>>
>> 2017-11-19 * "Opening balance: Account2"
>> Assets:Crypto:ETH:Account2 3.968560 ETH
>> Expenses:Crypto:ETH:Balance -3.968560 ETH
>>
>> 2017-11-19 * "Opening balance: Exchange"
>> Assets:Crypto:NEO:Exchange 4 NEO
>> Assets:Crypto:GAS:Exchange 0.18651499 GAS
>> Expenses:Crypto:NEO:Balance -4 NEO
>> Expenses:Crypto:GAS:Balance -0.18651499 GAS
>>
>> I am not experienced with accounting and english is not my primary
>> language, but I guess the file is in "accounting good shape" and it makes
>> sense somehow. If not please let me know.
>>
>> Now let's go to the point. Assuming that file I would like to be able to
>> issue a command on the command line and be able to see the portfolio in USD
>> or EUR at the present time value. I can query most of the coins using a pip
>> package, the question is, how I do that? I have read the "Prices in
>> Beancount" [1] google docs file, however there is no example and it would
>> be very useful to grasp a bit better how everything ties up. Is there any
>> example of fetcher module so I can build mine on top of it? Or if you are
>> aware of any module for prices that works with crypto that I could use out
>> of the box it would be even better.
>>
>> Please note that each coin might be on an exchange account or in a wallet
>> (account1 or account2). I would like to get the overview of this sum, for
>> instance when I refer to "ETH" I would like to see as it appears on the
>> balance, but at the current USD or EUR price, and so for the other
>> currencies.
>>
>> From what I understood about the prices document, the prices will be
>> fetched and saved on the beancount file automatically. I would like to do
>> this automatically on a weekly basis, so I guess cron is my friend here. I
>> guess it is wise to use a separated file and link them together somehow.
>>
>> I would also like (if possible) to have this on a web interface like fava
>> or similar if possible. I guess this might work automatically once the
>> prices are correctly fetched.
>>
>> Could you please point me into the right directions to get all these
>> things working properly?
>>
>> Thank you very much.
>>
>> [1]:
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1thYRAMell_QT1Da1F_laprSs6BlROZjyK_h3V8qHW9c/edit
>>
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