Stop loss and take profit in crypto: how to protect a trade

What is a stop loss?

A stop loss sells your position automatically when the price falls a set percentage below your entry. Put a 5% stop loss on a $100 buy and it sells around $95. That keeps a loss small and predictable.

What is a take profit?

A take profit does the opposite: it sells once your position is up by a set percentage. You lock in the gain before a rally reverses, which with fast coins often happens within minutes.

Trailing stop: moving up with the profit

A trailing stop moves up as the price rises. Say your trailing stop is 4% and your coin rises 20%. Your stop now sits 4% below the highest price, not below your entry. When the price turns, you sell with most of the gain still in hand.

Which percentages make sense?

Too tight and normal swings shake you out; too wide and the stop barely protects you. A starting point:

• Large caps (BTC, ETH, SOL): stop loss 3–6%, take profit 6–12%
• Active mid caps: stop loss 5–10%, take profit 10–25%
• Small or new tokens: wider, but use smaller amounts
• Keep your take profit larger than your stop loss, otherwise you need to win more often than you lose

Why does a stop sometimes trigger later?

A stop loss is not a guaranteed sell price. On a DEX something has to watch the price and execute the sale; in the meantime the price can keep falling. In thin markets the sale itself can also push the price down a little.

In Coindivo, stop losses and take profits on positions in your own wallet are checked by the app every 30 seconds. On Bybit they are placed directly on the exchange. On top of that, the auto-trader can exit when momentum turns, often before the stop is hit.