Five Iron Rules of Risk Management: Survive to Win

The biggest risk in crypto is not missing out — it is blowing up your capital and leaving the table. These five keep you in the game.

1. Risk only spare money Money you can lose entirely without affecting your life. Borrowing, credit cards, or dipping into emergency funds to trade is where disasters begin.

2. Cap per-trade loss Risk at most 1–2% of total capital per trade. Then even ten losses in a row will not break you.

3. Never go all-in Holding cash is not waste — it is opportunity and buffer. Fully invested means losing the ability to rebalance and buy dips.

4. Do not lever a directional bet Leverage suits hedging and disciplined short-term traders, not "betting it goes up." Levered directional gambles blow up over time.

5. Always set a stop When you enter, already know "where I exit if wrong" — and actually do it. The biggest losses come from "it'll come back, just wait."

See also position size calculator, Leverage & Liquidation Basics: The One Thing to Calculate First, How to Allocate a Crypto Portfolio: A Basic Position-Sizing Framework