Realized vs unrealized crypto gains: how much have you really made?
Your exchange shows a green “Today’s PnL”, your wallet shows nothing, and you still don’t know how much you’ve made. The answer takes two numbers, realized and unrealized, worked out across all your accounts at once.
Realized vs unrealized crypto gains sounds like accounting jargon, but it answers the only question that matters: how much have I actually made? Neither your exchange nor your wallet answers it properly. Binance shows a “Today’s PnL”, Kraken a balance, a Ledger a quantity. For a long time I thought I was ahead, because my open positions were in the green. My past sales said otherwise.
Realized vs unrealized gains: the difference
A realized gain comes from a sale, or from swapping one coin for another. It’s final. An unrealized gain, or paper gain, is what you would make if you sold what you hold right now. It changes every minute.
| Realized | Unrealized | |
|---|---|---|
| Comes from | a sale or a swap | the price going up or down |
| Applies to | the coins you gave up | the coins you still hold |
| Moves with the price | no | yes |
| Formula | sale proceeds − fees − cost of the coins sold | current value − cost of the coins held |
Both formulas rely on your average cost basis (the average price you paid, fees included), explained in the guide to crypto cost basis across exchanges.
How to calculate your crypto gains, step by step
Three bitcoin buys on two exchanges, a transfer, then a sale (a made-up example with rounded prices):
| Date | Transaction | Quantity | Cost or proceeds, fees included |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-01-12 | Buy on Binance | 0.020 BTC | $1,801.80 |
| 2025-03-03 | Buy on Coinbase | 0.010 BTC | $765.00 |
| 2025-06-06 | Buy on Binance | 0.015 BTC | $1,351.35 |
| July 2025 | Transfer Coinbase → Binance | 0.010 BTC | none |
| 2025-09-10 | Sale on Binance | 0.015 BTC | $1,500.00 − $1.50 fee |
You bought 0.045 BTC for $3,918.15, an average cost of $87,070. The transfer changes nothing: you just moved your coins.
Realized gain
The 0.015 BTC you sold had cost you $87,070 × 0.015 = $1,306.05.
Realized gain = $1,500.00 − $1.50 − $1,306.05 = $192.45, or +14.7%.
Unrealized gain
You still hold 0.030 BTC, which cost you $2,612.10. At $95,000 a bitcoin, they’re worth $2,850.00.
Unrealized gain = $2,850.00 − $2,612.10 = $237.90, or +9.1% (faster: current price ÷ average cost − 1).
Total gain, and a one-line check
Total gain = $192.45 + $237.90 = $430.35.
The check needs no cost basis: what you have, plus what you’ve taken out, minus what you’ve put in. Here, $2,850.00 + $1,498.50 − $3,918.15 = $430.35. If the two methods disagree, a transaction is missing.
In a spreadsheet, with the average cost in B2, the quantity sold in C2 and the net proceeds in D2, =D2-B2*C2 gives the realized gain. With the quantity held in E2 and the current price in F2, =E2*(F2-B2) gives the unrealized gain. The free crypto portfolio tracker spreadsheet does this for every coin.
How to calculate your crypto profit percentage
A percentage only means something if the top and the bottom of the fraction are about the same coins. Three are correct, for three questions:
| Question | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Were my sales any good? | realized ÷ cost of the coins sold | +14.7% |
| Is what I hold in profit? | unrealized ÷ cost of the coins held | +9.1% |
| What did the money I put in earn? | total gain ÷ money put in | +11.0% |
The trap is mixing them. Dividing the unrealized gain by everything you ever invested gives +6.1%, because the cost of the coins sold stays in the denominator.
Why Binance only sees Binance
Binance’s “Today’s PnL” isn’t your profit. It’s the day’s change in your Spot balance, net of deposits and transfers (Binance’s own documentation). And the day starts at midnight UTC, whatever your time zone.
For the purchase price, Binance only knows your account there. Its token PnL analysis page takes cost at the market price when the quantity goes up. So your 0.010 BTC bought for $765 on Coinbase count as a $920 purchase, their value on the day they arrived.
Seen from Binance, the average cost rises to $90,514 and the total gain drops to $275.35. The missing $155 was earned on Coinbase, which only sees a withdrawal. Neither exchange shows you $430.35.
What skews the calculation when you have several accounts
- A crypto-to-crypto swap realizes a gain. Swapping ETH for BTC means selling ETH, even though no cash leaves the exchange. The BTC you receive costs what the ETH was worth that day.
- A transfer to an account you don’t track makes coins disappear without a sale, and the one-line check breaks. It happened to me, with LINK and ONDO sent to an address I never connected.
- Rewards have no purchase price. Counted at $0, interest, staking rewards and airdrops are unrealized gain, then realized when you sell. Pick one convention and stick to it.
- A coin you sold in full disappears from the screen. This is the most expensive trap: with no balance, the coin drops off the list along with its realized gain or loss. Your closed-out losses show up nowhere.
My own numbers: unrealized gains up, realized gains down
My own portfolio, across all my accounts, in early October 2026:
| What I measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Open positions: unrealized gain | +7% on their cost |
| All my sales: realized gain | −5% on the cost of the coins sold |
| Coins sold in full | 49, only 16 of them at a gain |
Looking only at what I hold, I’d think I was ahead. My biggest losses are in closed positions: ONDO at −70%, STX at −56%, FET at −50%, AVAX at −45%.
Bitcoin shows the one-exchange effect. My average cost is about $81,800 across all my accounts, $91,500 on Binance alone. At $83,600, the price on the day I’m writing this, it’s up 2% one way and down 9% the other.
What Crypto Master does instead
Crypto Master reads your accounts with nothing to retype: exchanges through a read-only API key or a file import, wallets through their public address. It works out realized and unrealized gains for each coin across all your accounts. Transfers between your own accounts aren’t counted as buys, and coins you sold in full stay on the list. Your dollars, euros and stablecoins count at face value, with no phantom gain.
The Evolution page shows your contributions and the portfolio’s value, month by month. The gap between the two lines is, give or take, your total gain.
It’s the clearest picture of what an unrealized gain is: the summer 2025 gain was never cashed in, and it’s gone.
This made-up portfolio is a three-year DCA: how to track yours month by month, net of contributions, is covered in how to track your crypto DCA for real.
The free plan covers 3 connected accounts and 500 transactions. API keys can’t place orders or withdraw.
What about taxes?
The realized gain in this calculation isn’t necessarily your taxable gain. In the US and the UK, swapping one coin for another is a taxable disposal; in France, it isn’t, and the gain is calculated on the whole portfolio. Unrealized gains are generally not taxed.
The IRS counts gains lot by lot rather than at an average cost, so Crypto Master builds that version too: your Form 8949 lots, account by account, split into short and long term.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between realized and unrealized gains in crypto?
A realized gain comes from a sale or a swap, and it’s final. An unrealized gain is on what you still hold, and it moves with the price.
How do I calculate my crypto profit?
Realized gain = sale proceeds − fees − average cost × quantity sold. Unrealized gain = quantity held × (current price − average cost). Your total profit is the sum.
How do I calculate my crypto profit percentage?
Divide the gain by the cost of the same coins. For a single position, current price ÷ average cost − 1 gives the unrealized percentage.
How can I see my total profit on Binance?
Binance only shows profit on your Binance account, and costs coins from your other accounts at the price on the day they arrived. For your real total, combine all your accounts.
Does swapping one crypto for another realize a gain?
For tracking your gains, yes: it’s a sale. For taxes, it depends on the country: taxable in the US and the UK, not in France.
Are unrealized crypto gains taxed?
In most countries, no: tax is due when you dispose of your coins, not while you hold them.
See the realized and unrealized gains of each coin, across all accounts, on a made-up portfolio, without signing up.
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