Crypto Scalping Basics
Before the first live trade, a scalper needs a working model of how crypto prices move, how orders fill and what they cost, what leverage does to the distance between a stop and a liquidation, and how to size a position so that a losing streak is an inconvenience rather than the end. These ten lessons are that model, in the order a beginner should read them. Every strategy on the site assumes them; skip them and the reasons trades fail stay invisible.
Start here
- How Crypto Prices Move: aggression consuming resting liquidity, and why price is drawn to the places where orders cluster
- Crypto Order Types: market, limit, stop and stop-limit, and what each costs
- Position Sizing & Risk Management: the formula every trade is sized with
Beginner
- How Crypto Prices Move: the mechanism behind every move, and the stop cluster explained without a villain
- Crypto Order Types: maker and taker, reduce-only, post-only, when a market order is right
- Crypto Trade Execution: fees, spread and slippage, and the $6,600 a month that order type alone decides
- Crypto Support and Resistance: levels as zones, why each test weakens them, and how they change sides
- Crypto Leverage Explained: margin, liquidation distance, and why leverage is chosen from the stop
Intermediate
- Position Sizing & Risk Management: the 1% to 2% rule, chart and ATR stops, portfolio heat
- Win Rate vs Risk/Reward: the breakeven win rate for any target, and why a 70% win rate can lose
- Trading Expectancy Explained: expected value, the law of large numbers, and why edge is invisible over twenty trades
Advanced
- Risk of Ruin: why position size rather than edge decides survival, and the recovery arithmetic of drawdowns
- Crypto Market Correlation: Bitcoin as the index, equities as regime, and the thirty-second check before every altcoin trade
Related topics
- Getting Started: what scalping is, timeframes, capital, the first month
- Market Mechanics: the order book, ranges, breakouts, trends, funding, open interest, liquidations
- Scalping Strategies: the setups, each with a worked trade in R
- Best Indicators for Scalping: VWAP, EMA, ATR and volume profile
FAQ
What is the 1% rule in scalping? Risk no more than 1% of the account on any single trade, measured as the loss if the stop is hit. At 1% it takes about seventy consecutive losses to halve the account, which no strategy with an edge produces; at 10% seven consecutive losses, which every strategy produces, take more than half. See Position Sizing & Risk Management.
Why does leverage end so many beginners' accounts? Because it moves the liquidation price closer without adding edge. A 10× position is closed by the exchange after a move of about 9.5%; a 50× position after about 1.5%, which BTC does in a quiet hour. The stop must always sit closer than the liquidation price, and the leverage is chosen last, from the stop. See Crypto Leverage Explained.
What is trading expectancy? The average result per trade: (win rate × average win) − (loss rate × average loss). It must be positive after fees for a strategy to be worth trading, and it is only visible over a few hundred trades. See Trading Expectancy Explained.
Does a high win rate mean a strategy is profitable? No. A 70% win rate with wins a quarter the size of losses loses money; a 40% win rate with wins twice the size of losses makes it. Win rate means nothing without the average win and loss beside it. See Win Rate vs Risk/Reward.
Are stop hunts real? The mechanism is real and needs no manipulator: stops cluster at obvious prices, the book beyond a level is thin, and a modest push triggers the cluster in a burst that usually reverses. Keep your stop out of the cluster. See How Crypto Prices Move.
This content is educational only. Not financial advice. See disclaimer.