Crypto challenges

Prices are in US dollars and come from several large exchanges at once.

Crypto trades 24 hours a day, seven days a week, weekends and holidays included. On Runtiler you can open, change and close crypto trades at any time.

That has some upsides. There's no closing bell, so there's no weekend gap from a market reopening. You can trade at whatever hour suits you.

It also means the market keeps moving while you sleep. A few things to keep in mind:

• Your daily limit still resets at 00:00 UTC. A trade left open overnight counts against the day it's in when it moves.
• Weekends can be thin. With fewer traders, prices can move in sudden jumps.
• Prices need the exchanges. If the exchanges that price a coin stop agreeing, or drop out, the terminal shows that prices are paused, and nothing fills until they're back.

Bitcoin and Ethereum have 1:5 leverage on Runtiler today, and the other seven coins 1:2. Forex has 1:100 and gold 1:30. The reason is how far crypto moves.

Bitcoin often moves 2% to 5% in a day, and smaller coins can move 10% or more. At 1:100, a 1% move against a full position would take all its margin. At 1:5, it takes a 20% move.

Leverage only limits how much you can hold. At 1:5, a $10,000 account can hold up to about $50,000 of Bitcoin. At 1:2, it can hold about $20,000 of Solana. What you lose is set by your size and your stop, not by the leverage. See Leverage and margin for how margin and stop-out work.

Because crypto moves more, a sensible stop is usually wider in percent than on forex or gold. A wider stop means a smaller size for the same risk.

Example: Solana

You have a $25,000 account and risk 1%, which is $250.

• Say Solana is at $150. Your stop is 4% away, at $144: $6.
• 1 lot is 1 SOL, so a $6 move is $6 per lot.
• Size = $250 ÷ $6 = 41.67, rounded down to the 0.01 step: 41.66 lots.

The trade is worth 41.66 × $150 = $6,249 and, at 1:2, uses $3,124.50 of margin. The risk at the stop is $249.96.

Example: Dogecoin

You have a $10,000 account and risk 1%, which is $100.

• Say Dogecoin is at $0.20. Your stop is $0.01 away (5%).
• 1 lot is 1,000 DOGE, so a $0.01 move is $10 per lot.
• Size = $100 ÷ $10 = 10 lots, which is 10,000 DOGE, worth $2,000.

The Risk % setting on the order ticket does these sums for you from your stop. Position sizing has a Bitcoin example.

A good habit is to compare your stop with the coin's normal daily range. A stop much tighter than a normal day's move tends to get hit by noise.

Crypto positions pay an overnight fee of 0.05% of their value for each 00:00 UTC they are held. Because crypto never closes, that includes Saturday and Sunday nights. There's no triple charge on any weekday, just one fee for each midnight.

Say you hold 0.1 BTC at $100,000, worth $10,000:

• One night costs $5.
• A week costs $35.
• Thirty nights cost $150, which is 1.5% of the position's value.

For short trades this is small. For a position you plan to hold for weeks, it adds up, and it comes off your balance like any loss. See Overnight fees.

A round trip of $10,000 of Bitcoin costs $2 extra on Standard and $7 in commission on Raw. On the other coins, it's $4 on Standard and $7 on Raw. Both pay the real market's own spread too.

So for crypto today, Standard is the cheaper account type per trade. The challenge sets the account type, so check it before you buy. Spreads, commissions and overnight fees compares the two in full.

• Size from the stop, and expect wider stops than on other markets.
• Keep total exposure in mind. Coins tend to move together, so three crypto trades at 1% each can behave like one trade at 3%.
• Decide before you sleep. Close, reduce or set a stop on anything you don't want to watch overnight.
• Count the nightly fee on trades you plan to hold.
• Watch the 00:00 UTC line. It's when your daily limit resets and when overnight fees are charged.