How to size a Bitcoin trade: why 0.01 lots isn't the same as gold
By Jason · 2 October 2026
On Thursday I took two Bitcoin trades. Both were the same kind of setup, both were sells, both had a stop about $145 away, and both won.
One made £2.13. The other made £5.99.
Same idea, same stop, nearly three times the money. The only thing I changed was the lot size, and the reason I changed it is the most useful thing I learned all week.
0.01 lots means something different on every market
I trade gold at 0.01 lots, so I opened Bitcoin at 0.01 lots too. It felt like the “same size”. It isn’t.
| Market | What 0.01 lots is | What a price move is worth at 0.01 lots |
|---|---|---|
| Gold (XAUUSD) | 1 ounce | $1 per $1 move |
| Bitcoin (BTCUSD) | 0.01 BTC | $1 per $100 move |
| USDJPY | $1,000 | about 6 cents per pip (0.01 yen) |
Gold at 0.01 lots pays about $1 for every $1 the price moves. Bitcoin at 0.01 lots pays $1 for every $100 the price moves.
That matters because the stops are also on completely different scales:
- Gold: a normal stop for me is $4–8.
- Bitcoin: a normal stop is $150–250. Bitcoin moves in hundreds of dollars an hour.
So at 0.01 lots a full Bitcoin stop costs about $1.50–2.50, while a gold stop costs $4–8. My Bitcoin trades were carrying a third of the risk of my gold trades, which means a third of the reward too.
The two trades
Trade 1: 0.02 lots (two 0.01 positions), stop $145 away. About 1R = £2.13.
Trade 2: 0.04 lots, stop $145 away. About 1.4R = £5.99.
Both trades did their job. The first one just didn’t risk enough to be worth taking. A gold trade with the same quality of setup would have made £6–8.
The formula: size from the stop, not the lot
Instead of picking a lot size and hoping, I now start from how much I’m willing to lose if the stop is hit, and work backwards:
Lots = the $ you want to risk ÷ the stop distance in $ (for gold and Bitcoin, on Vantage-style contracts)
For Bitcoin, where 1 lot is 1 BTC:
- I want to risk about $6 (about £4.50, roughly 1.3% of my account).
- My stop is $145 above the entry.
- $6 ÷ $145 = 0.041, so 0.04 lots.
That’s exactly what the second trade used. If the stop had been hit, I’d have lost about £4.40, the same as a normal gold loss. When it won 1.4R, it paid like a gold trade.
For gold the same formula gives a different answer, because 1 lot is 100 ounces:
- Risk $6, stop $6 away: $6 ÷ $6 = 1 ounce = 0.01 lots.
- Risk $6, stop $4 away: 1.5 ounces, which rounds down to 0.01 lots (always round down, never up).
Quick table: Bitcoin lots for about $6 of risk
| Stop distance | Lots | Loss if hit |
|---|---|---|
| $100 | 0.06 | $6 (about £4.50) |
| $150 | 0.04 | $6 |
| $200 | 0.03 | $6 |
| $250 | 0.02 | $5 |
| $300 | 0.02 | $6 |
If the stop the chart needs would put you well over your risk even at 0.01 lots, the answer is the same as on gold: skip the trade. Never move the stop closer to make the numbers work.
What about pips?
There’s no official pip on Bitcoin, which is part of why this is confusing. On this site I count 1 Bitcoin pip as a $1 move, so my second trade was +198 pips. Other traders use $10, and some platforms show ticks of $0.01. The name doesn’t matter. What matters is the dollar distance to your stop, because that’s what the formula uses.
The same goes for USDJPY, which a few of you have asked about. On Vantage it quotes to 3 decimals, so 500 “ticks” is 0.500 yen, or 50 pips. At 0.01 lots that’s worth about $3.20, not $5, and the value shifts a little with the exchange rate because the profit is paid in yen.
The rule I’m keeping
- Decide the risk first, in pounds or dollars, and keep it the same on every market.
- Measure the stop from the chart (beyond the wick or the zone, never inside it).
- Lots = risk ÷ stop. Round down.
- If 0.01 lots is already too much, skip it.
Then a 1R win on Bitcoin, gold or anything else means the same thing to your account, and your results actually tell you which setups are worth trading.
Every trade above is in my journal, with the charts, the stops and the account balance before and after. For the gold side of this, see what 0.01 lots means on gold and where to put your stop loss.
Real trades on my own live account at small size. This is how I manage my own risk, not financial advice.