Do you know, before you place the next order, how far your crypto capital is allowed to fall before you stop? If the answer is no, that decision gets made under pressure instead.
This article explains how to build a funding plan table: a short table that lays out, in advance, what your capital looks like after a run of wins and after a run of losses.
Every figure here comes from arithmetic rather than from anyone’s results, so you can reproduce each one with a calculator before you rely on it.
It is written for people trading crypto with their own money who want the stopping point decided while they are calm. The content is as of 18 September 2026.
Losing is fast, recovering is slow
Prices move, and capital shrinks faster than most people expect. The awkward part is not the fall itself. It is that climbing back out is harder than falling in, and the gap widens as the fall gets deeper.
If your capital drops by 20%, you need a 25% gain to return to where you began. The reason is simple: the gain is calculated on the smaller amount that is left, not on the amount you started with.
After a 40% drop you need 67%. After a 50% drop you need 100% – you have to double what remains. The required climb rises far more steeply than the fall that caused it.
Because of that asymmetry, trading without a predetermined limit quietly carries the risk of reaching a depth that is no longer realistic to recover from. The limit is worth more before you need it than after.
Without a band, losses push position sizes up
When no stopping point has been set, a run of losses tends to be answered with a larger position. The logic feels reasonable in the moment: one good round would undo several bad ones.
The problem is that a larger position also enlarges the next loss. The climb back gets steeper, which argues for an even larger position, and the loop tightens. Nothing about it looks irrational from the inside.
A band fixed in advance breaks that loop. When the number is already written down, stopping is a mechanical act rather than a judgement call made while holding a losing position.
Writing it as a table rather than a feeling matters too. Mid-drawdown, a table shows how much room is left in figures, while a vague sense of the limit tends to stretch.
Losing runs are not unusual either. If wins and losses are evenly matched, the chance of five losses in a row is one in thirty-two, which is a road you travel repeatedly as the number of trades grows.
So the band is not built for the unlikely case. It is built for the ordinary one, which is why it has to be decided before the run rather than during it.
How to build the table
A funding plan table puts your current capital on a zero row, lists what capital becomes after consecutive wins above it, and what it becomes after consecutive losses below it.
There are only three decisions to make: the starting capital, the size of the band, and the number of rounds on each side.
- Starting capital: take your current account value and fix it as the zero row
- Band: size each round so that five in a row lands exactly on plus or minus 20%
- Rounds: five wins and five losses, eleven rows, all visible on one screen
Splitting 20% across five compounding rounds gives +3.71% per win and -4.36% per loss. The losing step is slightly larger because each loss is taken from a smaller base than the one before it.
Fixing the band has a practical benefit: there are no parameters left to type in each week. Once the starting capital is set, every week is measured against the same ruler, which makes the comparison meaningful.
Each losing row should also carry the winning streak required to return to the starting capital. Three losses in a row need four wins; five losses in a row need seven.
Seeing “seven wins to get back” written on the row is what makes stopping halfway down a losing run easier. It converts a vague worry into a number you can weigh against how often you actually win.
Fitting one trade inside the band
Once the band is set, each trade has to fit inside it. On 1,000 dollars of capital, a single loss is allowed to take 44 dollars, because 4.36% of 1,000 is roughly 44.
Suppose the level at which you would admit the trade is wrong sits 3% away from your entry. Then the position can be about 1,450 dollars, since 3% of 1,450 is roughly the 44 dollars you allowed.
The further away that level sits, the smaller the position has to be. Position size is the variable you adjust; the band is the constraint you keep fixed.
Doing it the other way round – fixing the size first – means any trade with a distant stop breaks the band on its own. At that point the table describes something you are no longer doing.
Set the deposit and the withdrawal target as well
Alongside the table, decide two amounts for the period ahead: how much you are putting in – the most you are prepared to lose – and the profit at which you will take money back out.
Keep the deposit inside what you could lose without it affecting how you live. Crypto prices move sharply, and a plan that assumes the deposit survives is not a plan for losing.
Once the withdrawal target is reached, move that amount out of the account. Profit that stays in the account is still exposed; profit that has been withdrawn is the part the plan actually delivered.
With both amounts written down, the table stops being an abstract grid. The rows where you take money out and the row where you stop are drawn on it as lines.
A short procedure
- Check your current account value and fix it as the starting capital for this period
- Lay out five winning rows and five losing rows, sized so the fifth lands on 20%
- Read the winning streak needed to recover from each losing row
- Decide the deposit (the most you can lose) and the withdrawal target for the period
- After a week, compare actual results with the table and fix a new starting capital
The table does not predict anything. It decides, while you are calm, where you will stop and where you will take money out, so that neither decision has to be improvised later.
After the week, put the table beside what actually happened. If capital fell faster than the losing rows suggested, the size of each trade was probably too large for the band you chose.
Listing realised profit and loss trade by trade separates the two cases that feel the same from the inside: too few wins, or single losses that were bigger than the plan allowed.
What tends to work, and what tends to go wrong
✅ What tends to work
Fixing the starting capital at the beginning of the period and leaving it alone until the end.
Because the baseline does not move, every week is measured the same way and it stays obvious whether the band has been breached.
⚠️ Common pitfalls
Re-fixing the starting capital in the middle of a losing run, which quietly erases the drawdown.
Once the baseline moves, neither the number of losses so far nor the wins needed to recover can be read from the table any more.
In summary
Recovering is harder than losing: a 20% fall needs a 25% gain, and a 40% fall needs 67%. That asymmetry is the reason to decide the band in advance rather than in the middle of a drawdown.
Build the table with five winning rows and five losing rows sized so the fifth lands on 20%, and put the winning streak needed to recover on every losing row.
Fix the starting capital, decide the deposit and the withdrawal target, and the stopping point stops being a judgement made under pressure. It becomes a number you agreed with yourself beforehand.
💡 Building the table with your own capital
The funding plan table in Hype Trade takes your Hyperliquid account value as the zero row and lists five winning and five losing rounds, together with the winning streak needed to get back (as of 18 September 2026).
(This article is general commentary as of 18 September 2026, and every figure in it is arithmetic rather than a result. Crypto prices move sharply and you can lose the money you put in.)
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