Why PrivateACB
Everything happens on your computer.
PrivateACB is a program you install. There is no web app or online service, no account, and nothing to upload.
It reads the CSV files your exchanges give you and works with the records you already have. When a file is not recognised, you simply tell PrivateACB which columns contain the information it needs.
When a price or exchange rate is missing, PrivateACB retrieves it from free public sources. You don't need an API key or a separate data subscription.
Your records are stored in an encrypted database on your own computer. Your password opens it. You keep the database, and you keep control of your data.
And you don't start over every tax year.
You build your crypto history once, then carry it forward year after year. Your cost base follows each asset from one transaction to the next, so over time your PrivateACB database becomes your complete crypto history.
For most people, there is no reason to pay a large fee every year simply to keep doing their crypto taxes. PrivateACB is software you buy and keep. Build your history once, use it year after year, and avoid starting from scratch with a new online tax service every tax season.
What stays on your computer
- The exchange files you import
- Every transaction record
- The cost-basis calculations, lots and pools
- Your gains and losses
- Every report, PDF and CSV
- The database itself, encrypted with your password (SQLCipher, AES-256)
- Any API key you enter, encrypted by Windows for your login (DPAPI)
- Your password, which the program never stores in the clear
What crosses the network, and why
The program goes online for three things, each when you ask for it. Nothing else.
- Prices
- When you ask the program to fill in a coin's daily prices, it asks CoinGecko, DefiLlama and Binance for the public price on each date. The request names the coin and the dates, not you and not your holdings. You can import a price file or type a price instead and it asks nothing.
- Exchange rates
- Prices quoted in US dollars are converted at the day's rate from the Bank of Canada or the US Federal Reserve's FRED. Public data, fetched the same way.
- License activation
- When you enter a license key, the program sends the key, a hash of your Windows machine identifier, your computer's name and the program version to the license service, once. If you later free the seat, it sends the key and the hash again to deactivate. That is the whole conversation. The 30-day trial sends nothing at all.
There is no update check, no crash report and no usage statistics. The program does not tell anyone it was run. The Help menu opens pages of this site in your browser, which is your browser's business, not the program's. The full list of the outside services, and what each is for, is on the Security page.
What PrivateACB never has
- Your transactions, balances or files
- Your gains, losses or tax figures
- Your exchange accounts or API keys
- Your database or its password
- A user account, because there isn't one
- Your name or email, unless you buy a license (Stripe passes me the order so I can send the key) or write to me
PrivateACB cannot leak what it never collected. It cannot be made to hand over what it does not hold. That is not a policy. It is how the program is built.
Security, in short
- The installer and the program are digitally signed in my name. Windows checks the signature before running; an altered file fails it.
- The database is encrypted and opens only with your password. Lose the password and the file is unreadable, to you and to anyone else.
- No account, no login, no server of mine holds your data. The license service holds a key and a machine hash, nothing about your portfolio.
Security, in detail → Who builds it →
Or read what it costs.