TL;DR: Wrong or negative balances are usually caused by missing trades, incomplete transfers, manual entry mistakes, incomplete data from exchanges, duplicate imports, or a dashboard setting that hides negative values. Staking/Earn balances (e.g. Kraken Earn, Binance Earn) are tracked as separate wallets, which can also look like a discrepancy at first glance.
Import all trades (including from closed exchanges) and use the Missing Transactions Report to find gaps.
Ensure transfers between wallets/exchanges have both withdrawal and deposit entries.
Check for wrong tickers or typos when adding coins manually.
Some exchanges limit data. Contact their support or enter missing transactions manually.
Negative FIAT values can be normal if tracking without deposits, as they represent investment cost minus realized gains.
Check whether negative balances are simply hidden on your dashboard, and whether duplicate imports (e.g. API + CSV overlap) are inflating or distorting your balance.
1) You Did Not Import All Your Trades
The most common reason for incorrect balances is incomplete trade history. Missing trades distort the balance sheet and cause wrong values.
Example:
Buy 10 ETH on Poloniex
Sell 2 ETH on Kraken
If only the Kraken trades are imported, your ETH balance will show -2 ETH. After importing the Poloniex trades, the balance corrects to 8 ETH.
Solution:
Ensure all purchases and sales are imported from every exchange/wallet.
Use the Missing Transactions Report: White Entries (No Match) to identify gaps.
Include trades from closed or inaccessible exchanges.
If coins were received as gifts, change the transaction type to Gift on the Transactions page.
2) Transfers Between Exchanges/Wallets Are Incorrect or Incomplete
Transfers must always have two entries:
Withdrawal (OUT) from the sending exchange/wallet
Deposit (IN) to the receiving exchange/wallet
If only one side is entered, balances will be distorted:
Missing withdrawal = value too high
Missing deposit = value too low
Solution:
Check all transfer pairs for completeness.
Some importers do not include deposits/withdrawals. Enter them manually if needed.
Use the Missing Transactions Report to find unpaired transactions.
Use the Balance by Exchange/Wallet view to see exactly where a coin is currently held according to CoinTracking, which helps pinpoint which exchange/wallet is missing a transfer entry.
As a last resort, delete all deposits and withdrawals (Transactions → filter for 'IN' and 'OUT' → delete). This will correct total balances but distort the “Balance by Exchange” view.
3) Mistakes in Manual Entries
Manual entry errors can also cause incorrect values.
Common mistakes: wrong coin name, incorrect ticker, or selecting the wrong token variant.
CoinTracking sometimes uses alternative tickers (e.g., SOL2 instead of SOL, DOT2 instead of DOT).
Manually added Quicksell trades entered after the fact can create a negative balance if the corresponding buy/deposit for those coins hasn't been entered yet or is entered with a later date.
Forgetting to enter fees on manual trades (or entering them incorrectly) will skew the resulting coin/FIAT balance, since fees are deducted from the traded amount.
Solution:
Review transactions on the Transactions page.
Check the Coin Trends page for correct tickers.
If many transactions use the wrong ticker, use Bulk Edit → Overwrite Coins to rename the mismatched coin across all affected transactions at once instead of editing each one individually.
When entering trades manually, always double check the fee field and make sure the date order of buys/sells/deposits matches how the trades actually happened, to avoid artificial negative balances.
4) Exchange Limitations on Data Exports
Not all exchanges provide complete transaction data:
Some exclude deposits and withdrawals.
Some only provide recent history (e.g., last few weeks/months).
For Binance, the API alone may not deliver all transaction types. Use the Binance Complete Import in addition to the API, and use the "generate all transaction" CSV export from Binance as a complement to the API for a more complete history.
Outdated Trade Pairs on a Binance API import job can cause imbalances; keep the Trade Pairs setting updated to prevent this.
If you no longer have access to a closed or deleted exchange account (e.g. an old Bitstamp account), check whether you still have old CSV exports, emails with trade confirmations, or account statements saved locally, since these are usually the only way to reconstruct the missing history once account access itself is gone.
Solution:
Check the Import FAQ and exchange-specific import page for restrictions.
Contact the exchange for full data.
Manually enter missing trades if necessary.
For Binance, combine the API import with the Binance Complete Import and/or the full transaction CSV, and keep Trade Pairs up to date.
5) Duplicate Imports (Overlapping API and CSV Data)
Duplicate transactions are another common cause of wrong balances. This often happens when the same exchange is imported both via API and via CSV, and the two data sources overlap in time.
How to spot and fix duplicates:
Compare import dates/ranges between your API job and your CSV import(s) for the same exchange to identify the overlapping period.
Use Bulk Delete, filtered by exchange and import date range, to remove the duplicated transactions for that overlapping period.
To prevent this from happening again, set a start date on the API import job so it only imports transactions from a certain point onward, leaving the earlier period covered exclusively by your CSV import.
If a transaction is flagged as a possible duplicate but your total coin balance is already correct, review it manually before deleting anything. Don't delete duplicates automatically, as in some cases these are legitimate separate transactions and removing them would create a new imbalance.
6) Negative FIAT Values in Your Account
If following the recommended tracking method (see “Different ways of managing your portfolio”), a negative FIAT balance is expected.
Example:
Deposit 1000 USD to Kraken
Buy 1 BTC for 1000 USD (without entering the deposit)
Result:
+1 BTC (= $1000)
-1000 USD (= $1000)
Total: $0
This negative FIAT reflects your investment cost, not the actual fiat held in your exchange account.
Solution:
Keep as-is if you want to track investment vs. gains.
Or, enter fiat deposits to avoid the negative balance (not recommended for portfolio accuracy).
Alternatively, enable FIAT imports in API job settings so APIs import all FIAT transactions.
7) Negative Balances Are Hidden on the Dashboard
CoinTracking has a dashboard setting that hides negative coin values in the current balance sheet. This can make it look like a coin balance is simply missing or wrong, when in fact it is negative and just not displayed.
- When this setting is active, hidden negative balances are excluded from the displayed total, which distorts the overall portfolio sum shown on the dashboard.
Solution:
Check your dashboard settings and disable the option that hides negative coin values if you want to see the true (negative) balance and have it reflected in the total.
Once visible, treat the negative balance using the causes described above (missing trades, missing transfers, manual entry mistakes, etc.).
8) Staking/Earn Balances Shown as Separate Wallets (Kraken Earn, Binance Earn)
Some exchanges split regular holdings and staking/earn products into separate balances. CoinTracking mirrors this:
Kraken and Kraken Earn are tracked as two separate wallets/labels in CoinTracking, matching how Kraken itself separates them.
The Live Balance page, however, groups Kraken and Kraken Earn together into one figure, which can make it look like there's a difference compared to CoinTracking's per-wallet balances. Even though nothing is actually missing.
Similarly, Binance Earn is its own separate exchange/wallet import, distinct from the regular Binance import.
Solution:
Use the Balance by Exchange page to verify your holdings per wallet/exchange, including Earn/staking wallets. This gives the correct, non-grouped view.
Remember that staked/Earn amounts are shown separately by design and are not missing; add the regular and Earn wallet balances together if you want a combined figure.
9) Tools to Diagnose Wrong or Negative Balances
CoinTracking offers several built-in tools to find the root cause of an incorrect balance:
Missing Transactions Report (white/unmatched entries): highlights transactions without a matching counterpart (e.g. one-sided transfers).
Transaction Flow Report: shows warnings when there is an imbalance between incoming and outgoing transactions for a coin.
ValiCheck: a systematic process to compare your real-world transaction history against what has actually been imported into CoinTracking, helping surface gaps or duplicates.
Balance by Exchange/Wallet: shows exactly where a coin is currently held according to CoinTracking's records.
Live Balance page: lets you compare your actual balance on the exchange directly against the balance calculated by CoinTracking, which is useful for spotting discrepancies at a glance (keeping in mind that it groups certain related wallets, such as Kraken and Kraken Earn, together. See above).
Using these reports together is the fastest way to narrow down whether a wrong balance is caused by a missing trade, an incomplete transfer, a duplicate, or a display setting.
Summary: To correct wrong or negative balances:
Import all trades from every source.
Ensure both sides of transfers are entered.
Check manual entries (tickers, fees, trade order) for errors.
Be aware of exchange export limits and reconstruct data from other sources if an account is closed.
Check for duplicate imports from overlapping API and CSV data.
Understand that negative FIAT may be normal under certain tracking methods.
Check whether negative balances are hidden on your dashboard.
Remember that staking/Earn wallets (Kraken Earn, Binance Earn) are tracked separately.
All reports and balances in CoinTracking depend entirely on the completeness and accuracy of your imported transaction history.