Trading Plan Example: The Checklist Before Every Trade

Most traders don't blow up because they picked the wrong coin. They blow up because they answered the right questions in the wrong order.

The Decision Protocol is a seven-step checklist for every crypto position: define the thesis, set the loss boundary, size the position, check total exposure, plan the trade, journal the result and review the decision. The first five steps happen before you place the order. The last two happen after it closes. The order matters, because each step depends on the one before it.

So who is this for? It's for the trader who wants the plan written down before any money moves, and who's willing to be held to it. It's not for the person hunting a hot tip and a rocket emoji. If you've ever opened a position because a stranger on the internet sounded confident... this page is going to feel like homework. Good. That's the point.

We built the protocol because the members who struggled were rarely short on market knowledge. They were short on a sequence. I say it on every public session: information is not the problem. It's the implementation. You can know a hundred facts about crypto and still lose the account if you skip the questions that protect your capital. The protocol is the backbone of how we teach crypto risk management, and it sits at the center of the learning roadmap.

Before the trade: five decisions

1. Define the thesis: what do you actually believe?

Here's where most people fail before they even start. They have a feeling, and they call it a thesis.

As I put it on one of our calls, trading on feel is "playing checkers against your niece at a holiday barbecue party, versus you're preparing to play against the Grandmaster... I'm not a chess master." Most of us aren't. That's why the thesis gets written down.

State what you believe the market is doing and what evidence supports the trade. Keep it to two sentences you could read out loud to someone else.

Example: "ETH has held its weekly support near $3,050 through two retests. I expect the stops under that level to get taken, then a move back to the range high."

If you can't write it, you don't have a trade. You have a feeling. See trade thesis.

I put the same rule another way. "If you can't put that on a chart, you don't have a trade."

2. Set the loss boundary: where are you wrong, and what does it cost?

Decide the maximum loss before emotion gets a vote. There are two parts: the price where the thesis is wrong (the invalidation level) and the dollar amount you accept losing if price gets there (your risk per trade).

Before I set the stop, I run a quick pre-mortem and ask myself one question. "What would price need to do to give me a good ol' spankin'?" That answer points straight at where the idea is wrong.

The stop goes where the technical analysis says the trade is wrong. Not a fixed percentage from entry. Not a buffer for wicks. And never moved to make the size or the ratio look prettier. I tell every new member the same thing: "The stop-loss is the stop-loss is the stop-loss."

The dollar figure is set before you look at the chart. We teach 1 to 2% of the account when you're new, and never more than 4% on any trade. The 1% in this example sits inside that beginner range.

Example: "The idea is wrong if price trades below $2,820, the low of the last weekly retest. Stop at $2,820. I risk 1% of the account, $500."

Write that number down while you're calm. You won't pick a sane one once you're in the trade.

3. Size the position: how big can it be?

The size comes from the stop. Not from excitement, and not from the profit you're daydreaming about.

Position size = amount at risk ÷ distance from entry to stop.

Example: entry $3,000, stop $2,820 (6% away), risk $500. Position size: $500 ÷ 6% ≈ $8,333. Our position size calculator does the arithmetic, and the position sizing guide explains it in depth.

The stop sets the risk, and the contract size comes from the stop. A wider stop means a smaller position and the same $500 at risk. Leverage gets chosen last, after the size, because it only changes how much margin the position uses.

Most people do this backwards, right? They pick the size they want, then go hunting for a stop that makes it fit. That's not sizing. That's hoping.

4. Check total exposure: what else is already riding on this?

One position never lives alone. Check the liquidation distance and how this trade stacks on top of everything else you have open.

Ask three questions:

• How much total risk is open right now?
• How correlated are these positions?
• If leveraged, is the liquidation price well beyond the stop?

The leverage guide covers that last check in detail.

Example: "I already have two altcoin longs open at 1% each. With this one, 3% of the account is exposed to the same Bitcoin move. That's still inside the total exposure cap I set in advance."

Three altcoin longs aren't three trades, right? When Bitcoin sneezes, it's one big trade wearing three different hats.

5. Plan the trade: what happens from entry to exit?

Set the entry, the stop and the exit logic before you click anything. Where do you enter? Where does the stop sit? Where do you take partial profit? What would make you close early?

Here's how I put it to newer traders. "Project where you would enter, project where you would put your stop loss, and project where you would take your profits."

Two rules shape this step.

First, the entry comes after the level gets taken, not in front of it. A resting limit order placed where a sweep of the stops would fill it is what we call the just in case order. It gets you into the market where everybody else is getting stopped out, whether or not you're at the screen. As I say on the calls: "I like to have the market work for me. I don't work for the market."

Second, the 1:3 filter. The stop goes in first, the target comes from chart structure, and the ratio is read, not forced. If the chart can't give you at least three dollars of reward for every dollar at the stop, there's no trade. "I don't take any trades under one to three."

The plan also says what happens to the stop once the trade is working. It's never widened, and it's not moved early. The house rule, in my words: "go to break even around one to 1.5 risk to reward. The percentage doesn't matter, it's the risk unit versus the reward unit." Once the trade is around 1 to 1.5R in profit (1 to 1.5 times the amount risked), the stop moves to break even. Trailing it further into profit follows structure. Each move is anchored under confirmed structure, the last higher low or the level that has become new support, and it's done by hand, not with an automatic trailing stop.

Example: "Just in case limit at $3,000, under the $3,050 support. Stop at $2,820. Target the range high at $3,540, which is 3 times the $180 of risk. Take a third off at the $3,300 mid-range resistance. The stop is never widened. It stays at $2,820 until the trade is around 1 to 1.5R in profit ($3,180 to $3,270), then moves to break even at $3,000. Once the trade runs further and the chart prints a higher low that holds, it moves into profit beneath that low, with room for price to oscillate. It is never moved up early just because the position is green."

A plan made in calm conditions is the one you can follow when the market gets loud. A plan made in the middle of a green candle isn't a plan... it's a mood.

After the trade: two decisions

6. Journal the result: did you do what you said you'd do?

Record what happened and whether the process was followed: the thesis, the levels, the size, the outcome, and one honest line. Did you follow the plan?

Memory keeps the wins and edits the losses. A trading journal keeps both.

And no, "I'll remember it" doesn't count. Nobody remembers the night they moved their stop at 2 a.m. They just remember the loss.

7. Review the decision: where did the process break?

Bring the reasoning into a setting where somebody else can inspect it, challenge it and correct it. Over time, the journal produces numbers such as profit factor and planned versus realized risk to reward. Those say more than win rate alone about whether the process is working and where it breaks down.

Ever notice how the crypto gurus post their win rate and never their profit factor? Because one of them fits on a thumbnail and the other one tells the truth.

Inside Crypto Renegades, the review happens on the live sessions and in one-on-one chart and trade reviews. Members submit completed decision work, and coaches look for the exact step where the protocol broke. You can't grade your own homework forever.

A checklist template you can copy

THESIS:       ________________________________________
INVALIDATION: price ______   RISK: $______ (___% of account)
SIZE:         risk ÷ stop distance = ______
EXPOSURE:     open risk now ___%  correlated with ______  liq. price ______
PLAN:         entry ______  stop ______  target ______  ratio 1:___ (min 1:3)  close early if ______
RESULT:       ______   FOLLOWED PLAN? yes / no   WHY: __________
REVIEW NOTE:  ________________________________________

Print it. Tape it next to your screen. Fill it in EVERY time, and especially on the trade you're sure about.

What can't the Decision Protocol do?

The protocol can't remove market risk. Crypto is volatile, positions will get stopped out, and losses are a normal part of trading. The example above is illustrative, not a result.

What the protocol does is make each decision visible. Visible decisions can be reviewed, and reviewed decisions can improve. At the end of the day, that's the whole game.

What should you do this week?

Take your next trade, or your last one, and run it through all seven steps on paper before anything else. If you can't fill in the invalidation line, you've found your problem.

Fill that line in before every trade from here on, and you'll never have to write the excuse after.

Want to learn it with people who run it every week? Try the Crypto Renegades Skool Community free for a week.

This is education, not financial advice.