Planning crypto trades
Getting started, sound principles, building a strategy, a full trade and a trading journal.
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Lessons
- 01How to start trading crypto.To start trading crypto, first decide whether you want to own coins on an exchange or trade the price through a broker's CFDs. Then secure the account with 2FA, learn what each trade costs, practise on a demo or with tiny sizes, and set a fixed risk per trade before you choose a coin.
- 02Crypto trading principles that hold up.The crypto trading principles that hold up rest on arithmetic and behaviour, so they apply to any coin. Risk a small fixed share of the account on each trade, let the stop decide the size, expect fills worse than your stop, size the trade before leverage, count every fee, and keep your money safe outside the trade.
- 03How to build a crypto trading strategy.To build a crypto trading strategy, choose one market, instrument and timeframe, then pick one idea you can explain, such as following trends. Write exact rules for the filter, entry, stop, target and size, so every number comes from the rules. Test them on past prices with fees included, then forward test before risking real money.
- 04A crypto trade from plan to exit.This example follows one bitcoin trade with round illustrative numbers. A $10,000 account risks 1%, so $100. Entry is $60,000, the stop $57,500 and the target $65,000, which gives a size of 0.04 BTC. The target is hit, and after $5 of fees the result is $195, or 1.95 times the amount risked.
- 05How to keep a crypto trading journal.Keep a crypto trading journal by writing the plan before each trade: venue, pair, setup, entry, stop, target, size in coins and risk in money. After the exit, record each fee as charged, the net result and R, and whether you followed the plan. Log deposits, withdrawals and wallet moves in a separate transfer log.