Chapter 8 ended on a plan that lives on a page. To place crypto futures orders is to put that plan on a form without turning it into a different trade. The fields are mostly given by the plan: the contract, the side, the prices, the units. Three checks need the form, because the unit has to convert, the costs have to be read off this form and this book, and the liquidation estimate has to clear the stop. Where a field has a default, your plan either overrides it or agrees with it. Each field that differs from the plan makes a different trade.
Take the figures from the plan before you open the form, then fill the form from the top of the table down. The size is already fixed in the plan, so the leverage setting in the first row comes after it. The third column is the checklist. The first six rows are answered before you submit and the last row after the fill. A "no" sends you back to fix the field, or ends the cycle as a pass. Exchanges label these fields differently and change them, so this chapter names fields and not buttons, and the live form and the exchange's help pages win. The limit: every figure on the ticket is an estimate until the order fills.
| Line | What you write | Test it must pass |
|---|---|---|
| Contract and margin | The contract and side from the plan. Isolated margin with auto-add off where offered, then the leverage setting. | Does the symbol match your fact sheet, and do the mode and the setting read back as set, with the setting at or below your ceiling? |
| Entry and size | The order type and price the plan names, the trigger price source if it is a stop, and when it expires, or the time you will cancel it if the form has no expiry. The plan's units in the form's unit: switch the unit if the form lets you, otherwise convert. For a ladder, each rung and the average entry. | Does the quantity the form shows equal the plan's units, and does the order end when the plan lapses? |
| Stop and targets | A reduce-only stop-market at the plan's stop order price, with its trigger source, and a reduce-only limit for each target. Attach the stop to the entry where the form allows, otherwise place it as soon as the entry fills. If the entry fills in part, size the stop to what has filled and resize it as more fills. | Is each exit reduce-only, the stop price the plan's, and the stop's quantity the quantity that is open? |
| Liquidation | The ticket's estimated liquidation price, its distance beyond the stop, and which price, mark or last, the stop and the liquidation each use. | Is the estimate on the far side of the stop, with both distances written side by side? |
| Costs and slippage | The fee rate this form shows for this order type, the fill your size would get by stepping through the resting orders you can see (for a stop entry, an estimate, with the plan's allowance as the rest), and funding over the planned hold, as a cost per unit and a share of the planned loss. | Are the costs from this form and this book, and 0.2 of the planned loss or less? |
| Limits | No pause active. The setting, and all open position values plus this one over equity, within your ceiling. This plan's planned loss in its group and in the total. | Does each pass before you submit? |
| After the fill | The filled quantity and average price, the stop's quantity, the liquidation estimate read again, and the planned loss from the actual fill beside the plan's R. | Is the stop live for exactly what filled, and will the unfilled orders be cancelled when the plan ends? |
Objectives
This step supports the execute step of the decision cycle: whether the order on the screen is the plan you wrote, or a pass. It comes here because the plan, the stop distance and the size are fixed, and what is left to get wrong is the transcription and the numbers only the form shows. It uses the chapter 8 plan and the fees, margin mode, caps and check order from your chapter 2 and 3 sheets.
- Set the margin mode, then the leverage setting the plan's size allows, and check it against your ceiling.
- Enter the plan's units in the form's unit and read the quantity back.
- Place the stop and each target as reduce-only orders for the quantity that is open.
- Step through the resting orders for your size and total fees, slippage and funding as a share of the planned loss.
- Read the estimated liquidation price and set it beside the stop distance.
The 3x ceiling and the 1 to 2% planned loss are house constraints, and 3x applies to the leverage setting and to all open position values over equity. Isolated margin, a reduce-only stop-market as the protective stop, the one-fifth cost line and the 4% total are this manual's choices. Reduce-only is a restriction that lets an order shrink or close a position and never open or enlarge one. Which price triggers an entry or a stop, last, mark or index, is yours to write, because the order types page gives no default. Less, or no position, is always allowed. This manual names no distance for "well beyond", so both distances are written down and judged side by side.
If the plan is a ladder, four things change. Size the units from the average entry with one stop for the whole ladder. Check the ceiling and the liquidation estimate for the full-fill position, not the first rung. Resize the stop, reduce-only, to the quantity filled as each rung fills. Cancel the unfilled rungs when the plan ends, because a rung that fills after the stop opens a position you did not plan. R stays the planned loss of the whole ladder.
Hypothetical walkthrough: a form that opens as a different trade
Hypothetical walkthrough. Invented prices and an invented outcome, chosen to teach the decision. Not a recorded trade, and not evidence of how often this setup works.
Assume plan A from chapter 8: a buy stop-market at 106, a reduce-only stop-market at 98.5, 6 units, a planned loss with costs of 47.4, a reduce-only limit sell of 6 at 120, and an entry that lapses after 3 candles. The account is $5,000 and the charter ceiling 2x. The hold candle has closed back above 102 with a high of 105.8, so the plan's condition is met and the entry has not triggered. The ticket, in the table's order:
- Contract and margin. Assume the form opens in cross margin, with a leverage setting above their ceiling and a size field in the quote currency. Three fields differ from the plan. They choose isolated, turn auto-add off and read it back. The size is fixed, so the setting comes next: they set 2, within their ceiling, which locks 318 of margin for the 636 position. Position value over equity is 0.13, also within 2.
- Entry and size. Buy, stop-market, trigger 106.00, trigger price source last. They switch the size field to units, type 6 and read a value near 636. Typed into the quote-currency field, 6 would have been 6 dollars. The form has no expiry for this order type (assumed), so they write the close of the third candle as the time to cancel.
- Stop and targets. A reduce-only stop-market sell at 98.5, trigger price source mark. The form (assumed) lets the stop attach to the entry, so its quantity follows the fill. A reduce-only limit sell of 6 at 120. The ticket names last for the entry and mark for the stop. Chapter 8's plan left the source open and the order types page gives no default, so another reader could write otherwise. A stop-limit would cap the fill price and could sit unfilled in a gap, so they keep the stop-market.
- Liquidation. For 636 at 2x isolated the form estimates (assumed) 53.3. The stop is 7.5 under entry and the estimate is 52.7 under it, 45.2 beyond the stop, about six times the stop distance. The stop and the estimate both use mark (assumed), so there is no last-against-mark gap to allow for. Had the estimate sat above the stop, liquidation would come first. The fix is a lower setting, or a pass if none clears.
- Costs and slippage. The sheet gives fees of 0.06% a fill (0.12% across both), funding of 0.06% over the hold and 0.20% for spread and slippage: 0.38% of 106, about 0.40 a unit. The order has not triggered, so the book it will hit cannot be seen. As an estimate from the depth visible now, assume asks of 3 at 106.0, 2 at 106.1 and 1 at 106.4 above the trigger. Six units average 106.1, 0.1 above the best ask. That sits inside the 0.20% allowance and is not added to it. Costs of 2.4 against the planned loss of 47.4 are 5%.
- Limits. No pause is active. The group holds 47.4 of its $50 and the total 47.4 of $200.
- After the fill, checked later. The quantity, the average price, the stop's quantity, the estimate again, and the planned loss from the actual fill beside 47.4.
The outcome was chosen to show three defaults that differ from a plan, a book that can only be estimated for a stop entry, and an estimate far beyond a stop. It stops at the completed ticket, before submit.
Reading list
- Limit vs market vs stop orders: what each type gives up, and why the protective stop is reduce-only.
- Laddering entries: one stop and one planned loss across several limit orders, and partial fills.
- Trading costs and liquidity: fees on both fills, a book stepped through for your size, and the one-fifth line.
- Liquidation price: why the ticket's estimate is the figure to use, and why the stop must sit before it.
- Risk limits: every limit as a tick-box to hold the ticket against.
- Rules checklist: the execute rules in the order of the decision cycle.
Read order types first, since it decides what you can place. Costs and liquidation say what the form's numbers mean, and the ladder page applies only if the plan has rungs. Save the plan, the ticket and the checklist together. They are the plan fields of one row in the log chapter 10 builds.
This chapter cannot settle the price you will get. No order type fixes the exit price in a gap, a stop can be rejected, part-filled or cancelled, and the realised loss can exceed the planned loss. The estimate moves with price, funding and margin, and how your exchange treats reduce-only, trigger prices and open orders when a position closes is for the form and its help pages to say. One ticket cannot say whether the plan was sound either. The question to carry forward: when the trade, or the pass, is done, what record would let you tell a sound plan from a lucky or an unlucky one? Review and practice builds that record and uses it to revise your charter.
You should now be able to
- Set the margin mode and the leverage setting and read both back against your ceiling.
- Enter the plan's units in the form's unit and read the quantity back.
- Place the stop and each target as reduce-only orders for the quantity that is open.
- Step through the resting orders for your size and total the costs as a share of the planned loss.
- Read the estimated liquidation price and say how far beyond the stop it sits.
- Produce: your completed order ticket and pre-execution checklist for one plan, with fees, slippage and liquidation distance checked, using the table at the top of this page.