How much should you invest in crypto
A question with a real answer, once you stop asking the market and start asking your own budget.
How much money should you put into cryptocurrency?
Only money you could lose entirely without altering your life. In practice that means: after an emergency fund covering three to six months of expenses, and never money needed for rent, debt payments or anything scheduled. For most people that lands between 1% and 5% of net worth. The correct amount is the one that lets you sleep during a 70% fall.
Start from your budget, not from the market
Every article that answers this question by talking about market conditions has the logic backwards. The market does not know your rent is due. The right amount is determined entirely by your own circumstances and is the same whether prices doubled last week or halved.
Work through it in order. First, an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses in cash. Second, any debt costing more than about 8% a year, because paying that down is a guaranteed return that no crypto position can promise. Only then does an allocation question arise at all.
The sleep test
Here is the practical version. Take the amount you are considering and imagine it falling 70% and staying there for two years. If that scenario makes you check prices at night, the amount is too large — not because the loss would ruin you, but because that anxiety is what makes people sell at the bottom.
This is not a metaphor. Selling during drawdowns is the single most common way retail investors turn a paper loss into a permanent one, and position size is what determines whether you can avoid it.
Running your own number
The Position size calculator handles the per-trade version of this question. Enter your account and the percentage you are willing to risk, and it returns the size — never the other way round.
For the whole-portfolio version, the Portfolio X-ray shows how many genuinely independent bets your holdings represent. Most people who believe they hold five positions actually hold one, because major crypto assets correlate between 0.7 and 0.95.
And the Survival odds panel answers the question directly: at the risk level you are considering, what fraction of accounts survive a hundred trades?
Common mistakes with sizing
Increasing size after a loss to recover faster. This is the most reliably destructive habit in leveraged trading, and the Mirror will find it in your own record if it is there.
Sizing by conviction rather than by stop distance. Conviction is not a measurable quantity; stop distance is.
Treating an allocation as permanent. Rebalancing back to your target is what turns a plan into a discipline, and the Rebalance planner writes the exact trade down before the moment arrives.
Common questions
What percentage of my portfolio should be crypto?
There is no universal figure. Most conservative guidance lands between 1% and 5% of net worth for people who already hold an emergency fund and carry no expensive debt. The right number is the one you can hold through a 70% fall.
Should I invest all at once or spread it out?
Spreading purchases removes the timing question and reduces regret, at the cost of some expected return if prices rise steadily. For most people the psychological benefit outweighs the arithmetic cost.
Is $100 enough to start?
Yes, for learning. It is enough to make the mechanics real without making a mistake expensive, and the fees on small trades are a useful lesson in themselves.
Should I borrow money to invest in crypto?
No. Leverage on an asset that routinely falls 70% converts a survivable loss into a forced one, and borrowed money removes your ability to wait.