Guides
Managing Portfolios
How to organise crypto holdings into separate portfolios so personal, business, and entity-specific accounting stay cleanly separated.
Managing Portfolios
A portfolio is the top-level container that holds everything Ledger knows about a particular set of crypto activity. Most users start with a single portfolio and never need another, but the model is multi-tenant by design: a freelancer who wants personal holdings reported separately from a side-business entity, or a founder who needs the company treasury kept distinct from a personal stack, can create a second portfolio and Ledger keeps the two completely walled off — different transaction sets, different cost-basis lots, different reports.
Each portfolio carries its own configuration: a base currency that every report normalises to, and a cost-basis method that drives every realised-gain calculation against it. Both choices stick — changing them after transactions have been imported triggers a full recalculation of the historical record, so it's worth getting them right at creation time.
Creating a portfolio#
The flow is short. From the portfolios list, open New portfolio and pick a name, a base currency, and a cost-basis method (the cost basis page covers the trade-offs between FIFO, LIFO, and HIFO). Optional description is for your own benefit — it shows up in the portfolio switcher.
Go to Portfolios → New portfolio
Enter a name and optional description
Choose a base currency — all P&L figures are reported in this currency
Choose a cost-basis method (FIFO, LIFO, or HIFO)
Click Create
Portfolio overview#
The portfolio dashboard is the page you'll spend the most time on. It surfaces four headline numbers — current market value, total cost basis, unrealised P&L, and realised P&L — alongside a holdings breakdown and a performance-over-time chart. Each number links through to the underlying transactions, so you can always trace any figure back to the on-chain or exchange-side event that produced it.
Total value — current market value of all holdings in base currency
Total cost — aggregate cost basis of all open positions
Unrealised P&L — difference between current value and total cost
Realised P&L — gains and losses locked in by past disposals
Asset breakdown#
The Holdings tab lists every distinct asset in the portfolio with its current quantity, weighted-average cost, live market price, and unrealised P&L. The columns sort independently so you can quickly find your largest positions, your worst performers, or the assets you've held the longest.
Column | Description |
|---|---|
Quantity | Total units held across all accounts |
Avg cost | Weighted average cost per unit |
Current price | Live market price |
Value | Quantity × current price |
Unrealised P&L | Value − (quantity × avg cost) |
Performance over time#
The Performance chart plots two lines: the total value of the portfolio over time and the cumulative invested capital that produced it. The area between the two is the unrealised gain (or loss) at any given moment, which makes it visually obvious where the portfolio outperformed or underperformed the cash you put in.
Sharing a portfolio#
Read-only sharing is available on VIP 2 and above. The owner generates a share link from the portfolio settings page; anyone with the link sees the dashboard view but cannot access individual transaction details, account settings, or the connected wallet list. This is the right shape for sharing a portfolio with an accountant during tax season or a cofounder who needs visibility but not edit access.