# Trader Make Money

> Trader Make Money is a trading journal and performance-analytics platform that automatically imports traders' real trade history, calculates net PnL including fees and funding, and analyzes performance, risk and behavior — with an AI coach that works on the trader's actual data. Supported markets include crypto exchanges.

Trader Make Money (TMM, tradermake.money) connects to 11 crypto exchanges with read-only API keys and imports every fill automatically, so the journal is a record of what actually happened rather than something the trader retypes into a spreadsheet. Fees and funding payments are reconciled into net PnL. There is a free tier, and an MCP server that lets an AI assistant query a trader’s own journal read-only.

Every page below also exists in Ukrainian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Portuguese, Indonesian and Chinese under a locale prefix (for example /es/learn/stop-loss). The English URL is canonical.

## Product

- [Trader Make Money](https://tradermake.money/): Automated trading journal that imports trades, calculates net PnL after fees and funding, and lets you review performance and risk. Free plan available. Connect an exchange with a read-only API key and the journal fills itself in — fills, fees and funding included.
- [Pricing and plans](https://tradermake.money/prices): Compare TMM trading journal plans. Start with the free plan, then upgrade for more connections, history, dashboards, AI Coach usage and voice notes. There is a permanently free tier; PRO unlocks the full history window and the advanced analytics.
- [Frequently asked questions](https://tradermake.money/faq): Answers about the TMM trading journal: account connections, read-only API keys, trade imports, analytics, AI Coach, pricing, privacy and troubleshooting.
- [News and announcements](https://tradermake.money/news): Feature releases, product updates, and announcements from the Trader Make Money team. The latest changes to your crypto trading journal, first.
- [MCP server for the trading journal](https://tradermake.money/mcp): Connect Claude, Claude Code or ChatGPT to your own trading journal. Read-only MCP server over your trades, PnL, win rate, risk and diary. Free token. The server is read-only: an assistant can query trades, PnL, win rate, risk and diary entries, but cannot place orders or move funds.
- [Connect Claude to the journal](https://tradermake.money/mcp/claude): Connect Claude to your TMM trading journal in three minutes. Paste one address, sign in, and ask Claude about your real trades, PnL and win rate.
- [Connect ChatGPT to the journal](https://tradermake.money/mcp/chatgpt): Connect ChatGPT to your TMM trading journal in five minutes. Paste one address, sign in, and ask ChatGPT about your real trades, PnL and win rate.
- [Top traders leaderboard](https://tradermake.money/top/traders): See the Top Traders on TMM today and this month. Explore account growth, win rate, profit factor, P&L, and available trading history.
- [PRO League](https://tradermake.money/top/pro): See who is leading the TMM PRO League today and this month. Review the results and trading statistics of participants who earned PRO status.
- [Most traded coins](https://tradermake.money/top-coins): See which cryptocurrencies TMM traders are trading right now across four timeframes. Updated every minute from newly opened trades. Activity data, not signals.
- [Trading analytics](https://tradermake.money/analytics): Data-driven analysis for your strategy with TraderMake.Money Analytics — advanced charting and a fully customizable dashboard for smarter trading decisions.
- [Trader reviews](https://tradermake.money/reviews): Read reviews and testimonials from traders who use TraderMake.Money to improve their results. See what the trading journal does for real accounts.
- [Public API documentation](https://tradermake.money/api/docs): Reveal all the power of analytical engine by using our full opened API v2.0
- [Press and brand kit](https://tradermake.money/press): Download the TraderMake.Money logo, brand colors, and usage guidelines. Official press kit for journalists and partners of the trading journal.
- [Contact](https://tradermake.money/contacts): Need support or have a question about TraderMake.Money? Contact us through the website and our team will gladly answer anything about the platform.

## Product documentation

How the product itself works, feature by feature.

- [Trader Make Money User Guide](https://tradermake.money/docs): This is the product manual for Trader Make Money — how to do each task in the app, step by step. Connect an exchange, wire up Telegram or Discord alerts, read your trades table, build analytics dashboards, backtest risk rules, and set up a public profile. Each article is written from the live app and links to the feature pages and glossary when you want the background.
- [Connections: Telegram & Discord](https://tradermake.money/docs/connections): Connections push real-time notifications, reports, and alerts from your journal into Telegram or Discord. You create a connection, choose which alerts it sends, and optionally customize the message layout. Telegram and Discord are the two supported connection types. Each connection can be scoped to specific API keys, set to a language, and put in private mode to hide exact figures.
- [Diary: your automated reflection tool](https://tradermake.money/docs/diary): The Diary is the zero-configuration side of the app. Where Summary is a canvas you build, the Diary is ready the moment you connect an exchange — it lays out your trading by day, week, and month and lets you add notes and a rating for each period. Use it to reflect: revisit what worked, spot recurring mistakes, and keep an honest record. This page is the reference for the three views and what each one shows.
- [Data filtering: presets, logic, and grouping](https://tradermake.money/docs/filters): Filters let you analyze your trades as whole trades — not individual orders — across My Trades, Summary, and each widget. You pick criteria (date range, PnL, side, tags, duration, and more), save the combinations you use often as presets, and control how multi-day trades are dated. Filters flow top-down: a dashboard filter applies to every widget, and a widget can override it for itself.
- [Getting Started](https://tradermake.money/docs/getting-started): To start, connect an exchange with a read-only API key. Your fills import automatically, and from that clean record the app builds your trades table, diary, and dashboards. Everything else — filtering, analytics, risk rules, alerts, and a public profile — reads from that one imported history. You never upload a CSV.
- [My Trades: the trades table reference](https://tradermake.money/docs/my-trades): My Trades lists every trade the journal imported, sorted by opening date, with open positions always first. Unlike Summary (which analyzes your trading as a whole), this table is where you review each trade one at a time — read its numbers, tag its entry reason, and write a conclusion.
- [Public Profile Setup](https://tradermake.money/docs/public-profile): A public profile is your trading business card: a bio, custom performance widgets, and an optional verifiable trade list — with full control over what data is revealed. You enable it from Settings, define visibility rules, design the page, and (optionally) join the Top Traders leaderboard. Data is pulled from your exchange via API keys, so stats stay verifiable.
- [Risk Management Backtester](https://tradermake.money/docs/risk-management): The Risk Management section replays your entire trade history against theoretical rules to show exactly what would have happened. It informs, it does not execute — it never closes positions on the exchange. You pick a scope, define limits to test, run the backtest, and read the adjusted equity curve. Enable a rule and the app logs every real-time violation.
- [Settings Hub](https://tradermake.money/docs/settings): The settings page is a modular hub: each account preference lives in its own block, from your identity and subscription to trades, charts, API keys, and the referral program. This is a reference to every block and what it controls. Open Settings in the app and follow along block by block.
- [Summary: dashboards and widgets](https://tradermake.money/docs/summary): Summary is your analytics canvas. You build boards, fill them with widgets that each show one slice of your trading — profit charts, win rate, drawdown, and more — and tune each widget with its own filters and appearance. How many boards and widgets you get depends on your plan. This page covers building and managing boards, adding and customizing widgets, sharing and private mode, real-time updates, and the exact board and widget limits per membership tier.
- [Telegram bot: commands and reports](https://tradermake.money/docs/telegram-bot): The Telegram bot brings your journal into Telegram: real-time trade alerts, on-demand reports, and the ability to fill in a trade's notes and screenshots straight from your phone. You link it once through the Connections system, then talk to it in a private chat. This page covers linking the bot, the full command set, what alerts it sends, and how to journal a trade from a Telegram notification.
- [Top Traders and the PRO League](https://tradermake.money/docs/top-traders): Top Traders is the public leaderboard. It ranks traders by how much their deposit grew over a day or a month, split into an Open league (anyone can join) and a PRO league (earned automatically). To appear, you opt in twice: turn your public profile on, and pick the API key you want ranked. This page explains how to qualify, how the two leagues and the PRO-league selection work, how the ranking is calculated, and why you might not show up yet.

## Features

What each capability does and how it is built.

- [Trading Journal Features](https://tradermake.money/features): Trader Make Money brings your trading record, performance analytics, and review tools into one journal. Track what happened, understand what shaped the result, and use your own data to review decisions, risk, timing, and consistency.
- [An AI Trading Coach That Works From Your Actual Trades](https://tradermake.money/features/ai-trading-coach): TMM's coach reviews the trades already in your journal and helps you understand what shaped your results. Ask about entries, exits, position sizing, risk, timing, setups, or recurring patterns and get answers grounded in your own trading record. It is built for post-trade review. It does not predict prices, generate trading signals, tell you what to buy, or place orders.

## Exchanges

Per-exchange journaling: what syncs, how the read-only API key is created, what is tracked.

- [Supported Crypto Exchanges](https://tradermake.money/exchanges): TraderMakeMoney connects to the leading crypto exchanges via read-only API key or wallet address. Every trade syncs automatically, funding rates are tracked where the exchange supports them, and your full history is imported on first connection.
- [Aster Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/aster): TMM already supports Aster, so you can journal your trades from day one. Connect a read-only API key once and TMM auto-imports your perpetual fills, rebuilds each position, and shows the PnL you actually kept after fees and funding. No CSV exports, no manual logging, no waiting for tooling to catch up to a newer exchange. Start journaling now and you build months of clean data while later arrivals are still hunting for a tool.
- [Binance Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/binance): A Binance trading journal that fills itself in. TMM connects to your Binance account with a read-only API key and pulls in every spot fill, every USDⓈ-M perp, every COIN-M trade automatically. Because it reconciles funding payments alongside fees, the PnL you see is the money that actually hit your wallet, not the rounded-up number on the trade ticket.
- [BingX Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/bingx): TMM is a free trading journal for BingX traders. Connect one read-only API key and TMM auto-imports both sides of your account — spot fills and USDT-M perpetual futures — rebuilds each position, and reports the PnL you actually kept after trading fees and funding. No CSV exports, no manual logging. Set it up once and forget about it.
- [Bitget Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/bitget): TMM connects to your Bitget account with a read-only API key and imports every fill automatically: spot, USDT-M futures, and the trades your copy-trading positions generate under the hood. It then shows you what you actually earned after fees and funding, not the rounded number Bitget's order screen flashes. More than 100,000 traders use it, and the core journal is free. Nothing to type in by hand — the API key does the work.
- [Bybit Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/bybit): A Bybit trading journal that builds itself from your fills. Hook TMM up to Bybit with a read-only API key and it imports your spot trades, your USDT linear perps, and your inverse coin-margined contracts automatically. Inverse traders especially get a journal that finally does the math right: funding and fees are settled in the base coin, and TMM tracks that net result instead of the gross number you eyeballed at exit.
- [Gate.io Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/gate): TMM imports your Gate.io trades through a read-only API key and turns them into a performance record you can act on — spot and USDT-settled perpetuals, every fill accounted for. It's built to handle Gate's fractional contract sizes correctly and to pull your full available history, not just the last few months. The journal is free, and 100,000+ traders already run on it.
- [Hyperliquid Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/hyperliquid): TMM is a free trading journal for Hyperliquid that connects with nothing more than your wallet address. There's no API key to generate, no secret to store, no passphrase. You paste the address you trade from, and TMM reads your on-chain perp history, rebuilds every position, and shows your true PnL after fees and funding. It's the simplest connection of any exchange we support, and the safest — a wallet address grants read access to public on-chain data and nothing more.
- [Kraken Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/kraken): TMM is a free trading journal that auto-imports every fill from your Kraken spot and Kraken Futures accounts using a read-only API key. It rebuilds each position and nets out the fees and funding Kraken charges. No CSV exports, no spreadsheet maintenance. The log stays current on its own, and the PnL you see is the money you actually kept.
- [KuCoin Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/kucoin): TMM is a free trading journal that auto-imports every fill from your KuCoin spot and USDT-M futures accounts using a read-only API key. It rebuilds each position and nets out the fees and funding KuCoin charges. No CSV exports, no spreadsheet maintenance. The log stays current on its own, and the PnL you see is the money you actually kept.
- [MEXC Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/mexc): TMM connects to MEXC with a read-only API key and imports your trades automatically — spot, USDT-M futures, and the long tail of small-cap altcoin perps MEXC is known for listing. It calculates your real PnL after fees and funding, the number a screenshot-and-spreadsheet routine never quite gets to. 100,000+ traders use it, and the journal is free.
- [OKX Trading Journal](https://tradermake.money/exchanges/okx): An OKX trading journal that updates itself. Connect TMM to OKX with a read-only API key — and the passphrase OKX makes you set when you create it — and your spot trades, perpetual swaps, and dated expiry futures import automatically. Funding on the swaps gets tracked payment by payment, so the PnL on screen is your true net after fees and funding, not the gross figure OKX flashes at close.

## Comparisons and alternatives

Head-to-head comparisons against other trading journals, with the trade-offs stated plainly.

- [Compare Trading Journals](https://tradermake.money/compare): A trading journal should fit the accounts you use and the way you review performance. These comparisons examine imports, analytics, journaling, AI features, pricing and data coverage—including the cases where another product is the better choice.
- [Best Crypto Trading Journals in 2026](https://tradermake.money/compare/best-crypto-trading-journal): The best crypto trading journal depends on how you import trades, which exchanges you use and how deeply you review performance. We compared six products across account coverage, data accuracy, analytics, journaling, AI features, pricing and exports. Start with the accounts you have to connect.
- [Looking for a CoinMarketMan Alternative?](https://tradermake.money/compare/coinmarketman-alternative): CoinMarketMan and TMM both work with cryptocurrency exchange data, but they organize the review process differently. Compare account coverage, PnL handling, analytics, journaling, AI-assisted review, public profiles and pricing before switching. Both connect exchange accounts through read-only API keys, so the decision comes down to what happens after the import: how results are calculated, how much of the analysis is prepared for you, and what you can show other people.
- [A Myfxbook Alternative for Crypto Trading Records](https://tradermake.money/compare/myfxbook-alternative): Myfxbook is built around forex and broker-connected performance tracking. TMM addresses a different workflow: importing supported cryptocurrency exchange activity, reviewing calculated results and optionally publishing a verified trading profile. If your track record lives in MT4/MT5 broker accounts, Myfxbook remains the right tool and nothing here replaces it. Compare connection method, verification model, analytics and pricing before deciding which record you actually need.
- [TMM vs CoinMarketMan](https://tradermake.money/compare/tmm-vs-coinmarketman): Both products work with cryptocurrency trading records. The meaningful differences are how they import data, calculate results, support review and present your trading history. Choose CoinMarketMan if portfolio and position tracking is the job you need done and its workflow already matches your habits. Choose TMM if you want automatic imports, calculated results, dashboards, AI-assisted review and a public profile in one place.
- [TMM vs TraderSync](https://tradermake.money/compare/tmm-vs-tradersync): TraderSync offers broader broker and asset coverage. TMM focuses on supported cryptocurrency exchange imports, calculated performance, dashboards and AI-assisted post-trade review. The right choice starts with the accounts you need to connect. Choose TraderSync if your journal has to cover stocks, options, futures or broker-connected accounts in one place.
- [TMM vs TradesViz](https://tradermake.money/compare/tmm-vs-tradesviz): TradesViz provides broad market coverage and deep configuration. TMM offers a more focused workflow for supported exchange imports, journal analytics, dashboards and AI-assisted review. Compare required connections before comparing convenience. Choose TradesViz if you want the deepest statistics and the most configuration across many brokers and markets.
- [Considering a TraderSync Alternative?](https://tradermake.money/compare/tradersync-alternative): TraderSync is the stronger fit for many stock, options, futures and broker-connected workflows. TMM becomes relevant when your current connections are supported and you want journal analytics, dashboards and AI-assisted review in a simpler workflow. Start with the accounts you have to connect. If part of your record lives with a stock, options or futures broker, that requirement settles the question before any feature comparison begins.
- [Considering a Tradervue Alternative?](https://tradermake.money/compare/tradervue-alternative): Tradervue is established for broker-imported stock, options and futures journals. TMM is a different fit: supported cryptocurrency exchange imports combined with dashboards, journal data and AI-assisted review. The accounts you need to connect decide most of this comparison. Once that is settled, the remaining question is how much of the review each product does for you and how much you assemble yourself.
- [Considering a TradesViz Alternative?](https://tradermake.money/compare/tradesviz-alternative): TradesViz is built for traders who need broad coverage and deep analytics configuration. TMM offers a narrower connection set with a simpler journal, dashboard and AI-assisted review workflow. The trade is configuration depth against a more opinionated, ready-made review. Coverage decides whether the comparison is worth having at all, so check that first.
- [Considering a TradeZella Alternative?](https://tradermake.money/compare/tradezella-alternative): TradeZella combines journaling, education and support for several trading workflows. TMM is worth comparing when your accounts are supported and you prioritize automatic records, performance dashboards and AI-assisted post-trade review. TradeZella is subscription-only and tuned first for stocks and options, with a learning path and community alongside the journal. Whether that matters depends on what you trade and how you prefer to improve.

## Learn: trading guides

Explanatory guides on derivatives mechanics, risk and trading psychology.

- [Crypto Trading Guides](https://tradermake.money/learn): Straightforward guides on the mechanics every futures trader encounters — liquidation, leverage, funding, position sizing, and the psychology that makes or breaks discipline. Pick a topic below or work through them in order.
- [Cross vs Isolated Margin: Which to Use](https://tradermake.money/learn/cross-vs-isolated-margin): Cross margin backs a futures position with your entire wallet balance, pushing the liquidation price far away but putting everything at risk. Isolated margin backs it with only the margin you assign, so a force-close can lose just that, no more. Both modes exist on every major crypto futures exchange, and picking the wrong one for a given trade is a quiet but common reason accounts get wiped.
- [What Is Liquidation in Crypto?](https://tradermake.money/learn/crypto-liquidation): Crypto liquidation is when an exchange automatically closes your leveraged futures position because your margin can no longer cover the position's losses. You don't choose to exit; the exchange does it for you, usually at the worst possible moment, and you lose the margin you posted. If you trade BTC or ETH perpetuals with leverage, this is the single event most likely to wipe an account. Understanding it is the difference between a controlled loss and a blown account.
- [Emotional Trading](https://tradermake.money/learn/emotional-trading): Emotional trading is making decisions from how you feel rather than from your plan — entering, exiting, sizing, or holding because of fear, greed, hope, or frustration instead of a defined rule. It is the umbrella over nearly every avoidable trading loss, and it is the reason knowing what to do and actually doing it are two completely different skills. The chart isn't your problem. Your reaction to the chart is.
- [FOMO Trading](https://tradermake.money/learn/fomo-trading): FOMO trading is buying into a move that has already happened — chasing a coin that's pumping because you can't bear to watch it run without you. The fear of missing out overrides your plan, and you enter late, at a bad price, right when the risk is highest and the reward is mostly gone. Crypto is built for FOMO. Green candles, social feeds full of gains, 24/7 markets — the pressure to jump in is constant, and it's almost always loudest at exactly the wrong moment.
- [What Is the Funding Rate?](https://tradermake.money/learn/funding-rate): The funding rate is a small recurring fee paid directly between traders holding perpetual futures, designed to keep the contract's price tied to spot. When funding is positive, longs pay shorts; when it's negative, shorts pay longs. Most exchanges settle it every 8 hours, and a typical rate sits near 0.01% per interval. Funding isn't a fee the exchange keeps — it's a peg mechanism.
- [How Funding Works — and Eats Your PnL](https://tradermake.money/learn/how-funding-works): Funding charges a small percentage of your position's full value every settlement interval — usually every 8 hours — paid between longs and shorts. Each charge is tiny, but they stack: over a multi-day hold, the cumulative funding can be larger than your price gain, leaving a trade you'd call a winner actually net negative. If you scalp, funding is noise.
- [How Much Leverage Should You Use in Crypto?](https://tradermake.money/learn/how-much-leverage): Use the lowest leverage that lets you take the position size your risk plan allows — for most traders that's somewhere between 2x and 10x, not the 50x or 100x the exchange dangles in front of you. Leverage isn't a dial you turn up to make more money. It's a constraint on how much room your trade has before liquidation. The right number falls out of your risk per trade and your stop distance. Pick those first; the leverage is whatever's left over.
- [How to Avoid Liquidation in Crypto Futures](https://tradermake.money/learn/how-to-avoid-liquidation): To avoid liquidation, keep your liquidation price far from the market: use lower leverage, set a stop loss above that price, hold spare margin, and watch funding so it doesn't quietly erode your position. The goal is simple — never let a normal price swing reach the level where the exchange takes over. Liquidation is preventable. It almost always comes from a handful of avoidable choices, and each one has a fix.
- [How to Be a Profitable Trader](https://tradermake.money/learn/how-to-be-a-profitable-trader): You become a profitable trader by building a process, not by getting better at predicting price. Five things, in order: a defined edge, strict risk control, the discipline to execute it, the patience to trade less, and an honest record that turns every trade into feedback. Do those consistently and profit is the byproduct. Skip any one and the rest leak away. This isn't a motivational answer. It's the actual mechanism, and none of it requires being a market psychic.
- [What Is Leverage in Crypto?](https://tradermake.money/learn/leverage-trading): Leverage lets you control a position larger than your account balance by borrowing buying power from the exchange. On crypto futures, 10x leverage means $1,000 of your own margin controls a $10,000 BTC position — and your profit and loss are both figured on the full $10,000, not the $1,000 you put up. That last part is the whole story. Leverage doesn't make a trade more likely to work.
- [How Liquidation Price Is Calculated](https://tradermake.money/learn/liquidation-price): Your liquidation price is the market price at which an exchange force-closes your leveraged futures position because your margin has fallen to the maintenance level. Knowing it before you enter tells you exactly how much room you have to be wrong. The number isn't arbitrary. It comes from your entry price, leverage, direction, margin mode, and the exchange's maintenance margin rate. Get those inputs right and you can estimate it in your head.
- [Long vs Short Crypto](https://tradermake.money/learn/long-vs-short): Going long means you profit when price goes up — you're betting the asset rises. Shorting means you profit when price goes down — you're betting it falls. In crypto futures you can do both with the same contract: a long gains as BTC climbs, a short gains as BTC drops. The mechanics are mirror images, including the direction that gets you liquidated.
- [What Is Maintenance Margin?](https://tradermake.money/learn/maintenance-margin): Maintenance margin is the minimum equity your leveraged position must keep to stay open. The moment your equity falls below this floor, the exchange liquidates the trade. It's the exact line separating an open position from a force-closed one. Initial margin gets you into a trade. Maintenance margin keeps you in it. Cross that floor going down and the decision to exit is no longer yours.
- [What Is Margin Trading?](https://tradermake.money/learn/margin-trading): Margin trading means putting up a deposit — the margin — to open a position larger than that deposit, with the exchange supplying the rest. On crypto futures your margin is collateral against a borrowed-size position, and if the trade moves against you far enough, the exchange closes it to protect the funds it fronted. In short: you commit a slice of capital, the exchange lets you control a larger position, and that slice is what's at stake first.
- [Overtrading](https://tradermake.money/learn/overtrading): Overtrading is taking far more trades than your strategy actually calls for — entering on weak setups, out of boredom, or from a need to feel busy, rather than because the market offered a genuine edge. It quietly bleeds accounts through fees, mistakes, and the dilution of your best ideas with your worst. The market doesn't pay you for activity. It pays you for being right when you act.
- [What Is Perpetual Futures?](https://tradermake.money/learn/perpetual-futures): A perpetual future is a leveraged derivative contract that tracks the price of a crypto asset and never expires. Unlike a traditional futures contract that settles on a fixed date, a perp can be held open indefinitely, and a recurring payment called the funding rate keeps its price tied to the spot market. They're the most-traded instrument in crypto — most leverage volume on Binance, Bybit, OKX, and the rest sits in perps, not spot or dated futures.
- [Position Sizing](https://tradermake.money/learn/position-sizing): Position sizing is deciding how many units to buy or sell so that, if the trade hits your stop, you lose only a fixed, pre-chosen amount of your account. It's the single most important risk decision you make, and most traders make it by feel — which is why most traders blow up. Get this right and no single trade can hurt you badly. Get it wrong and one bad call wipes out a month of good ones.
- [Revenge Trading](https://tradermake.money/learn/revenge-trading): Revenge trading is what happens when you take a loss and immediately fire back at the market to win it back — usually bigger, faster, and without a real setup. It is trading driven by anger and ego rather than a plan, and it is one of the fastest ways to turn a small loss into a catastrophic one. The market doesn't know you lost and doesn't care. But your ego does, and the urge to "get it back right now" is where small accounts die in a single afternoon.
- [Risk Management in Trading](https://tradermake.money/learn/risk-management): Risk management is the set of rules that decide how much you can lose — per trade, per day, and overall — before you ever think about how much you can make. It is the discipline that keeps you in the game long enough for a real edge to play out. Strategy decides whether you have an edge; risk management decides whether you survive to use it. Profitable traders aren't the ones who avoid losses.
- [Risk of Ruin](https://tradermake.money/learn/risk-of-ruin): Risk of ruin is the probability that a string of losses wipes out your trading account before your edge can pay off. It's a single number, driven by three inputs — your win rate, your reward-to-risk ratio, and how much you risk per trade — and it's the most honest answer to the question "could I actually blow up doing this?" Most traders never calculate it. If they did, they'd size much smaller.
- [Spot vs Futures in Crypto](https://tradermake.money/learn/spot-vs-futures): Spot trading means you buy and own the actual coin — your 0.1 BTC sits in your wallet until you sell it. Futures trading means you hold a contract that tracks the coin's price, usually with leverage, and you never own the underlying asset. That single difference — ownership versus a contract — drives everything else: how much you can lose, what fees you pay, and whether the exchange can force you out of the trade.
- [What Is a Stop Loss?](https://tradermake.money/learn/stop-loss): A stop loss is an order that closes your position automatically once price reaches a level you set in advance — the price at which you've decided the trade is wrong. It exists to turn a small, planned loss into a finished event instead of an open wound you keep staring at. That's the whole idea: decide before you enter how much you're willing to lose, put the exit in the market, and let it fire without you. The hard part isn't understanding it. It's leaving it alone.
- [Trading Discipline](https://tradermake.money/learn/trading-discipline): Trading discipline is doing what your plan says even when every emotion is screaming at you to do something else. It's taking the stop, skipping the chase, sizing correctly, and walking away at your daily limit — not because you feel like it, but because the calm version of you decided in advance. Discipline isn't a personality trait. It's a system you build so that following the rules doesn't depend on how you feel. The traders who last aren't the ones with iron willpower.
- [How to Build a Trading Plan](https://tradermake.money/learn/trading-plan): A trading plan is the written set of rules that defines exactly what you'll trade, when you'll enter and exit, how much you'll risk, and what you won't do. Written down, in advance, before money is on the line. It's the difference between trading a process and trading your mood. The plan's real job is to remove decisions from the heat of the moment, because that's when you make your worst ones. Decide while you're calm; execute while you're emotional.
- [Trading Psychology](https://tradermake.money/learn/trading-psychology): Trading psychology is the mental and emotional side of trading — how fear, greed, hope, and ego drive the decisions your strategy was never supposed to make. It is the reason traders who know exactly what to do still do not do it. The gap between a good plan and a blown account is almost always psychological, not technical. You can have the best setup in the world and still lose, because the hard part isn't finding the trade.
- [What Is Drawdown?](https://tradermake.money/learn/what-is-drawdown): Drawdown is the drop in your account from its highest point down to a later low, measured as a percentage. If your equity peaked at $12,000 and fell to $9,000, you're in a 25% drawdown. It's the single clearest measure of how much pain a strategy — or a trader — has actually taken. It matters because the math of recovery is unforgiving, and because deep drawdowns break the discipline that would otherwise dig you out.
- [Why Most Traders Lose Money](https://tradermake.money/learn/why-traders-lose-money): Most traders lose money for a short list of repeatable reasons, and almost none of them is "couldn't predict the market." They lose because they risk too much per trade, let emotions override their plan, never define a strategy worth following, and keep no honest record to learn from. The losses aren't bad luck. They're the predictable output of avoidable mistakes, made over and over. The good news in that: if the reasons are repeatable, they're fixable.

## Glossary: trading metrics

Definitions of the performance metrics the journal reports, with formulas and worked examples.

- [Crypto Trading Glossary](https://tradermake.money/glossary): A reference for the metrics that decide whether a trading account grows or bleeds. Every term below is defined in plain language, with the formula, a quick crypto example, and why it matters once you start reviewing your own trades. Most traders learn these words one painful loss at a time. The faster route is to understand what each number measures, then let a journal track it for you across every exchange.
- [Expectancy in Trading](https://tradermake.money/glossary/expectancy): Expectancy is the average dollar result you can expect from each trade over a large number of trades. Positive expectancy means the system makes money over time; negative means it bleeds, no matter how good single trades look. It ties your win rate and your risk-reward ratio together into one verdict on whether your edge actually pays.
- [Max Drawdown](https://tradermake.money/glossary/max-drawdown): Max drawdown (MDD) is the largest peak-to-trough drop your account equity has ever experienced. It's the single worst losing stretch in your history, measured from a high to the lowest point before a new high. Ordinary drawdown tracks your current distance below the peak. Max drawdown is the all-time record, the deepest hole the strategy has ever dug.
- [What Is PnL in Crypto?](https://tradermake.money/glossary/pnl): PnL (profit and loss) is the money you have gained or lost on a position. In crypto it splits into realized PnL, locked in once you close, and unrealized PnL, the paper gain or loss on open trades. The term comes straight from accounting, where a profit-and-loss statement sums what an entity earned against what it spent. A trading account works the same way at the level of a single trade or your whole portfolio: are you up or down, and by how much.
- [Realized vs Unrealized PnL](https://tradermake.money/glossary/realized-vs-unrealized-pnl): Realized PnL is the profit or loss you lock in when you close a trade: final, in your balance. Unrealized PnL is the paper gain or loss on a position that is still open. The split matters because only realized PnL is money you actually have. Unrealized PnL changes with every price tick until you close, a forecast that can vanish before you ever act on it.
- [Risk-Reward Ratio](https://tradermake.money/glossary/risk-reward-ratio): The risk-reward ratio compares how much you expect to gain on a trade against how much you're risking to get it. A 1:3 ratio means you're risking $1 to make $3. Entry, stop-loss, and target fix it the moment you place a trade, which makes it one of the few trading variables you fully control before the market moves.
- [Sharpe Ratio](https://tradermake.money/glossary/sharpe-ratio): The Sharpe ratio measures how much return you earned for each unit of risk you took, where risk means the volatility of your returns. A higher Sharpe means smoother, more efficient gains. A lower one got you the same result on a much wilder ride.
- [Win Rate in Trading](https://tradermake.money/glossary/win-rate): Win rate is the percentage of your trades that close in profit. If 6 of your last 10 trades were winners, your win rate is 60%. It's the most quoted trading stat and the most misread. A win rate tells you how often you're right, not how much you make, and those are very different things.

## Free calculators

Free calculators that run in the browser, no account needed.

- [Free Trading Calculators](https://tradermake.money/tools): Four free calculators for crypto traders. Each one runs in your browser, returns an answer the moment you type, and never asks you to sign up. Use them to size a position before you enter, check the risk-reward on a setup, work out where a leveraged position liquidates, or settle the perennial argument with yourself about whether your win rate is actually good enough to keep you green.
- [Liquidation Price Calculator](https://tradermake.money/tools/liquidation-calculator): Your liquidation price is the level at which a leveraged position has lost so much that your margin can no longer cover it, and the exchange force-closes the trade. For a long it sits below your entry; for a short, above. Enter your entry price, leverage, and side and this calculator estimates that level, so you know your hard floor before you open the position rather than discovering it on the way down.
- [Position Size Calculator](https://tradermake.money/tools/position-size-calculator): Position size is how much of an asset you buy so that hitting your stop-loss costs you a fixed, pre-decided amount of your account. You decide the risk first — say 1% of your balance — and the calculator works backwards from your entry and stop to tell you exactly how many units, or how much in dollars, that allows.
- [Risk/Reward Ratio Calculator](https://tradermake.money/tools/risk-reward-calculator): The risk-reward ratio compares what you stand to lose against what you stand to gain on a trade: the distance from your entry to your stop versus the distance from your entry to your target. Enter those three prices and this calculator returns a clean ratio like 1:3, the risk and reward per unit, and the win rate you would need to break even at that ratio — the single most useful number for deciding whether a setup is worth taking.
- [Free Trading Journal Template (Notion, Google Sheets & Excel)](https://tradermake.money/tools/trading-journal-template): Below are three free trading journal templates — one for Notion, one for Google Sheets, one for Excel. Each comes pre-built with a trade log and an auto-calculating dashboard, so you copy it once and start logging trades in minutes. All three are genuinely free and genuinely useful. They are also manual, and that matters more than it sounds — once you have one, see the spreadsheet-vs-automated section below to see what changes when your journal fills itself.
- [Win Rate Calculator](https://tradermake.money/tools/win-rate-calculator): Your win rate is the share of your trades that closed in profit: winning trades divided by total trades, times 100. Enter your numbers below and this calculator returns the percentage instantly, then tells you the win rate your risk-reward ratio actually requires to break even — the number that decides whether a 55% win rate is a triumph or a slow bleed.