How to use it
- Enter one asset at a time; the tracker treats all rows as identical units of that asset.
- Add every acquisition: purchases (with fees), rewards at fair market value, and the incoming side of each swap.
- Add every disposition: sales, swaps out, and spending crypto on goods or services, each at its CAD value on the day.
- Check the ledger for highlighted superficial losses and the ACB per unit after each row.
- Download the CSV and keep it with your exchange and wallet exports for at least six years.
How average cost works for crypto
When you own several units of the same thing bought at different prices, Canadian tax rules treat them as identical properties and pool their cost. CRA's page on identical properties says the ACB per unit is the total cost of the units you hold divided by how many you hold, recalculated each time you buy more. Selling units does not change the per-unit figure for what remains.
That makes the order of events matter. A purchase raises or lowers the average; a sale removes units at the current average and creates a gain or loss equal to proceeds minus selling costs minus the average cost of the units sold. The tracker sorts your rows by date and applies exactly that sequence.
CRA's crypto pages describe the cost base as usually what you paid plus the expenses of acquiring it, so purchase fees are added to cost and selling fees reduce proceeds. Network fees paid to move coins between your own wallets are a grey area; record them, and ask a tax professional how to treat them in your situation.
| Transaction | Units | Total ACB | Creates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy (plus fee) | Up | Up by price + fee | Nothing yet |
| Reward received | Up | Up by fair market value | Income in the year received |
| Swap into this asset | Up | Up by value of what you gave | A disposition of the other asset |
| Sell or swap out | Down | Down by average cost × units | A capital gain or loss (or business income) |
Worked example: the sample ledger
The sample rows (illustrative values) buy 0.5 units for $30,000 plus a $45 fee, then 0.25 units for $17,500 plus $26. The pool holds 0.75 units with an ACB of $47,571, or $63,428 per unit. A reward of 0.01 units valued at $650 is recorded as income and adds $650 to the pool, so the per-unit cost becomes $63,448.68.
On May 20 the ledger sells 0.3 units for $15,000 less a $22 fee. The average cost of those units is $19,034.60, so the sale shows a loss of $4,056.61. But 0.1 units are bought back on June 5, inside the 30-day window, and are still held 30 days after the sale. One third of the units sold were replaced, so $1,352.20 of the loss is a superficial loss: it is denied now and added to the ACB of the remaining units. The claimable loss is $2,704.40.
A later sale of 0.2 units for $16,000 less $24 produces a gain of $3,209.36. The year's net capital gain is $504.95, and at the one-half inclusion rate the taxable capital gain is $252.48. The remaining 0.36 units carry an ACB of $22,979.95.
DeFi transactions CRA hasn't addressed
As of October 30, 2026, CRA's crypto pages (modified between October and December 2025) cover dispositions, swaps, mining, staking on centralized platforms and record keeping. They do not address lending, borrowing against crypto, liquidity-pool deposits, wrapping, bridging or liquid-staking tokens. Whether depositing into a pool or wrapping a token is a disposition is not settled by any CRA page we found.
If you use these features, record them as you go: the date, the units in and out, the CAD value at the time and the transaction hash. Then decide on a consistent treatment with a professional. The tracker can model either view (treat a deposit as a sale and buy, or as no event) so you can see the difference.
Records CRA expects you to keep
CRA's record-keeping page lists the units, the date and time, the value in Canadian dollars, what each transaction was and who the other party was, your wallet addresses, opening and closing balances for the year, and exchange trade and transfer ledgers. It also suggests exporting your platform history regularly in case a platform closes or you lose access.
Keep records for at least six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to. A CSV like the one this tracker exports is a working file; the underlying exchange statements and on-chain transaction IDs are your evidence.
- Exchange trade and transfer histories (exported, not just viewed)
- Wallet addresses you control and transaction hashes
- The CAD value source you used for each on-chain transaction
- Receipts for any fees you added to cost
Limits of this tracker
It handles one asset per ledger and one person's transactions. The superficial-loss test looks only at the rows you enter, so purchases by your spouse, a corporation you control or a registered account are not seen. It does not decide whether your activity is a business; if it is, gains are income rather than capital, and the ACB still matters for computing the profit. See capital gains or business income.