Title: Does transferring LTC between platforms mess up your P&L for anyone else?

[u/Upper-Profile-637]

​

Hey everyone,

I’ve noticed something weird with my portfolio P&L.

Sometimes I transfer Litecoin (LTC) from one platform to another and later transfer it back. These are obviously just transfers of my own coins, so there shouldn’t be any actual profit or loss involved.

However, the portfolio overview sometimes seems to treat these movements as P&L. For example, my P&L can suddenly show a large loss even though I haven’t actually lost that amount of money. I’ve attached some screenshots showing what I mean.

Financially it doesn’t really matter, but psychologically it does affect me a bit. Seeing a big red P&L number can mess with my perception of how I’m actually doing, especially when I’m trying to keep a clear and objective view of my trading performance.

Has anyone else experienced this with LTC transfers (or transfers of other cryptocurrencies) between platforms?

Is there a way to prevent transfers from being counted or displayed as P&L, or is this simply how the portfolio calculation works?

Curious if anyone else has noticed this.

[u/krakensupport]

Hi u/Upper-Profile-637,

Thanks for the detailed explanation, that’s a fair thing to flag.

This is likely related to how the cost basis is calculated. If the LTC is deposited back at a different price than when it left, or if the outgoing and incoming transfers are treated as separate events, it may create an apparent P&L change even though no actual trade occurred.

We don’t have full visibility into the exact calculation from here, so if you’d like us to confirm what happened in your specific case, please create a ticket with our team here.

🐙

[u/Upper-Profile-637 → u/krakensupport]

Thanks for the response, I appreciate the explanation.

I actually contacted support about this once before. However, I’m still struggling to understand how this could be explained by the cost basis.

In my case, a transfer back and forth of approximately 1 LTC can suddenly result in around €90 being shown as a loss in the portfolio P&L. That amount is actually higher than the value of the LTC involved in the transaction.

So I understand that the way deposits and withdrawals are accounted for could potentially create an apparent P&L difference, but a €90 loss from transferring roughly 1 LTC doesn’t seem to make sense, especially when there was no actual trade or realization of a loss.

I’m mainly trying to understand what exactly is causing this, because seeing these artificial P&L swings can be quite confusing.

[u/krakensupport → u/Upper-Profile-637]

Your instinct is right, nothing is realized by a transfer. What's most likely shifting is your cost basis. The returning LTC is valued at the price on arrival and averaged into your existing entry price, which moves the baseline your unrealized P&L is measured against.

On the size of it, you're right that one round trip shouldn't produce €90 on 1 LTC. Since you do this back and forth fairly often, the more likely explanation is that each trip nudges your average price again and it accumulates.

If the assigned price doesn't match what you actually paid, you can edit it: History → Main and Ledger → select the deposit → pencil icon beside "Entry Price". More here: https://support.kraken.com/articles/portfolio-performance-on-kraken-pro

To confirm what's happening here we'd need your specific ledger entries. If you'd like us to dig into it more, please raise a ticket with our team so they have a closer look. You can also share the ticket number with us here via DM and we'll be happy to give it a push for you 🤝

Cheers, Mac 🐙

[u/final_lionel]

Use a tracker for calculating the P&L like coingecko.

If you have multiple wallets and platform, P&L can't be accurate