What Is PnL in Crypto?

PnL (profit and loss) is the money you have gained or lost on a position. In crypto it splits into realized PnL, locked in once you close, and unrealized PnL, the paper gain or loss on open trades.

The term comes straight from accounting, where a profit-and-loss statement sums what an entity earned against what it spent. A trading account works the same way at the level of a single trade or your whole portfolio: are you up or down, and by how much.

Long:  PnL = (Exit Price − Entry Price) × Position Size
Short: PnL = (Entry Price − Exit Price) × Position Size

For a long position, PnL is the difference between exit and entry price multiplied by your size; for a short, the direction flips. Subtract trading fees from both. On perpetual futures you also net funding payments, the money paid to or received from the other side of the market, which is where most crypto PnL math quietly goes wrong.

Example

You buy 1 BTC at $60,000 and sell at $66,000. Gross PnL is (66,000 − 60,000) × 1 = +$6,000, a 10% gain on the position. Pay $40 in fees and your net realized PnL is $5,960.

What the screen leaves out

PnL is the headline number, but the gross figure on an exchange screen rarely matches what actually hit your balance. Fees, and on perps funding, can turn a green trade red. A journal that records true net PnL per trade, across every exchange, shows you what you really made instead of what the order ticket flashed.

What Is PnL in Crypto?

Example

What the screen leaves out

Related Terms

TMM calculates your PnL automatically: realized, unrealized, and funding-aware.