Visualizing Bitcoin Adventures

I’ve been riding a Bitcoin (and Ethereum) roller coaster for a year .. and its been a fun little diversion.   However, its hard to see the journey .. it feels like I’ve come out ahead, but have I really?

I doodled various (complicated) ways to try to show stuff via a 3D graph .. but when I actually went to play, this 2D version works just as well:

image

  • Vertical (down) drops ==  I transferred bitcoin (either to another account, or buying something with bitcoin).
  • To the top-left = I bought bitcoin for USD
  • To the bottom-right = I sold bitcoin for USD (for buying something usually)
  • Note: A similar chart would exist for my Ethereum account.  No, i did not buy a switch for $90, it was more than that.
  • Steep curve vs Shallow curve gives a feeling for price.   buy Steep, sell Shallow is the desire.
  • I could beat myself up .. if only I hadn’t spent the bitcoin, I’d have so much more now…
  • Currently, my experiment is net-positive.  Even if bitcoin goes to $0 right now.

How I created this

  • Download transaction report from Coinbase.   This is a .CSV file, which I then open in excel.
  • Their report has a “Amount” (Column C) which has + for bitcoin added, – for bitcoin removed.
  • Their report has a “Transfer Total” (Column H) .. but it isn’t signed. 
  • Their report also has a Transfer Fee column .. I’m ignoring that for this graph.    I did sum it up, I’ve paid $30 in fees this year.
  • Add a new column, “Signed Transfer Total”   formula is something like “=IF(H27<>0,H27*SIGN(-C27),0)” – to get a signed USD column.  Note that I’m reversing the sign so that a plus in bitcoin is a minus in USD.
  • Add a new column, “USD Balance”, which sums up all the Signed Transfer Total to date.   Something like “=SUM(J$6:J27)”.  For simplicity I added it right next to their bitcoin balance column
  • Grab those two columns and chart it, scatterplot, lines
  • Adjust the vertical size of the graph till you get something that works for you.  

In summary

I do not regret this Bitcoin experiment.

I do hope to leave stuff in Bitcoin, i think it will continue to grow for a while.

Author: sunnywiz

Me.

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