A Crypto Trading Journal for a Market That Never Closes
A crypto trading journal should record when you traded, the confluences you looked at before you got in and how fast the market was moving. Crypto trades all day, every day, and it behaves very differently from hour to hour. EdgeFlow keeps those details on every trade, so you can see which of your setups work in which conditions.
Why does the time of day matter so much in crypto?
Stocks and futures have opening hours. Crypto does not. Bitcoin trades at three in the morning on a Sunday just as it does on a busy Tuesday afternoon.
That does not mean every hour is the same. When Europe and the US are awake, many more people are buying and selling. On a quiet Sunday night, far fewer are. The same entry can behave like two different trades at those two times.
EdgeFlow reads the day of the week and the time of day from the time of each trade, so you do not have to type them. Later you can compare your weekday trades with your weekend trades, or your night trades with your daytime ones.
How fast was the market moving?
Crypto can sit almost still for days and then move more in an hour than in the whole week before. A setup that works in a calm market may fail right after a big news move, and the other way around.
So note it on the trade, in a word or two: quiet or fast. If you mix both kinds of market together, a setup can look average when it is strong in one and weak in the other.
What was the bigger chart doing?
The bigger chart is the one above the chart you enter on. If you enter on fifteen-minute candles, it might be the four-hour or the daily chart. Was it trending, moving mostly one way, or going sideways?
Writing this down keeps two kinds of trades apart: trades that follow the trend and trades that bet on a turn. They often behave very differently, and lumping them together hides both.
Which of your confluences are helping?
Your confluences are what you look at before you get in: price at a level you marked, a candle closing your way, the bigger chart moving your way. In EdgeFlow each one is a box you tick on the trade, in your own words.
For each box, EdgeFlow puts the trades that had it next to the trades that did not, and shows how each group did: how many trades, how many won, and your average result per trade in R. R is your result in units of risk: +2R means you made twice what you risked. That shows whether a confluence is helping, or only making you wait. What confluence means in trading explains the word with examples.
How you got in and what you did after
Your entry, stop (the price where you get out at a loss) and target (the price where you planned to take profit) are required on every trade. What you did after you got in, like moving your stop or taking profit early, gets its own boxes. Kept apart from the setup, a nervous exit habit cannot make a good setup look bad.
Which exchanges does it work with?
EdgeFlow is not tied to any exchange, and it does not connect to one. You log trades by hand, or import a CSV file with a date, the coin, buy or sell and the prices. The import brings in prices and results but not the confluences you looked at, so you tick those per trade afterwards.
Common questions
What should I track in a crypto trading journal?
The coin, the date and exact time, buy or sell, your entry, stop and target, the result, and the confluences you looked at before you got in. Add one word for how fast the market was moving. The day of the week and time of day are read from the time of the trade.
Is weekend crypto trading different?
Often, yes, because fewer people are trading. Whether it is different for you shows up when you compare your weekend trades with your weekday trades, once each group holds plenty of trades.
Can I connect my exchange to EdgeFlow?
No. EdgeFlow does not connect to exchanges or brokers. You log trades by hand or import a CSV file. The confluences you looked at are added per trade, because no export contains them.
Does EdgeFlow work for futures-style crypto contracts with leverage?
Yes, because results are counted in R, your result in units of risk. As long as you log your entry and stop, the size of your position and your leverage do not change how a trade compares with the others.
Will EdgeFlow tell me which coin to trade?
No. EdgeFlow gives no signals and no advice. It shows how the trades you logged yourself turned out, grouped by your confluences.
Related reading
Guides on this topic
- What to Track in a Trading Journal (the Short List)The fields a trading journal really needs, why each one earns its place, and what you can safely leave out. Works for any style of trading.
- How to Keep a Trading Journal (and Not Quit After a Week)Start a trading journal you will still use next month: the five things to write down per trade, when to do it, and a short weekly look back.
- Losing Month: Is It Your Strategy or How You Traded It?A losing month comes from the strategy or from how you traded it, and the fixes are opposite. One question on every trade tells you which it was.
- Why Your Setup Stopped Working (and What to Check First)A setup that worked for months and now loses has three likely causes, each with its own fix. How to tell them apart using your own journal.
See which of your confluences made money
Log your trades, tick the things you checked before you entered, and see which of them did the work in your own trades.