Short answer: the best Empower alternative for crypto investors is not just another budgeting dashboard. Look for whole-net-worth tracking across normal accounts and public wallets, read-only access, keyless crypto, manual fallbacks, and clear privacy controls.
Empower's Personal Dashboard is built around a wide set of money tools. Its own site describes budgeting, planning, retirement, net worth, portfolio analysis, transactions, and more in one place. That breadth is useful if you want a general financial dashboard.
But if your main problem is crypto plus traditional finance, your needs are narrower and sharper. You may not want another budgeting interface. You may want to know what you are worth across brokerages, banks, retirement accounts, real estate, exchanges, public wallets, and on-chain positions.
When Empower may be enough
Empower can be a good fit if your financial life is mostly traditional accounts and you want a broad dashboard with planning tools.
Empower-style dashboards are useful when...
- You want net worth, budgeting, cash flow, transactions, retirement planning, and portfolio analysis in one place.
- Your primary accounts are banks, credit cards, brokerages, retirement accounts, and loans.
- You value advisor-style planning tools and broad personal finance guidance.
- Crypto is either a small piece of the picture or something you are comfortable tracking elsewhere.
What crypto investors should look for instead
If crypto is a meaningful part of your net worth, the alternative should answer a few questions clearly.
- Can it track self-custody wallets? Public wallet addresses should be enough.
- Does it ask for private keys? A net-worth tracker should not need them.
- Does it support multiple chains? Bitcoin, Ethereum, L2s, Solana, and other ecosystems should not require separate dashboards.
- Does it show the whole picture? Crypto-only is not enough if your stocks, banks, retirement, and property live elsewhere.
- Does it avoid budgeting bloat? If the job is net worth, the product should not bury the number under expense categories.
- Can you export or delete data? A finance app should not trap your history.
The core tradeoff
General dashboard
Great when you want a broad personal finance command center: spending, transactions, planning, investments, retirement, and net worth.
Crypto-aware net worth
Better when the main job is one trustworthy number across wallets, brokerages, banks, retirement, real estate, and manual assets.
Privacy should be above the fold
Crypto investors tend to be more sensitive to trust, and for good reason. A net-worth app should make the trust model plain before you connect anything. For crypto, that means no seed phrase, no private keys, and no ability to move funds. For traditional accounts, it means read-only connections where possible and clear disconnect/delete controls.
If a product cannot explain what it can and cannot do with your accounts, it is not ready to hold the map of your financial life.
Where Ascend fits
Ascend is built for people who like the idea of a net-worth dashboard but do not want crypto treated as an afterthought. It brings brokerages, banks, 401(k)s, real estate, and keyless on-chain crypto into one private number. Crypto wallets are read by public address only, traditional accounts are read-only, and the product is focused on wealth tracking rather than budgeting.
It is not trying to replace every general-purpose personal finance workflow. It is trying to answer the question crypto investors keep duct-taping together with apps and spreadsheets: what am I worth across all of it?
Bottom line: if you want broad budgeting and planning, Empower may be enough. If you want crypto-aware whole-net-worth tracking, look for keyless wallet support, read-only access, and a product built around the total number.
Helpful context: Empower's official financial tools page describes its Personal Dashboard as helping with budgeting, planning, retirement decisions, net worth, budgeting and cash flow, portfolio analysis, transactions, and connected accounts. See Empower's financial tools page.