What Is the Decision Protocol?

Most expensive trading mistakes aren't bad ideas. They're good ideas done in the wrong order, like picking a size before you know where the trade is wrong.

This is for the trader who wants a process that still works on a bad day. If you click buy and figure out the stop later... this page exists to break that habit.

Why does the order of the Decision Protocol matter so much?

Each decision feeds the next, so you can't skip ahead.

1. Thesis. What you expect the market to do and why, in two sentences.
2. Invalidation level. The price where the chart proves the thesis wrong. The stop-loss goes exactly there, no buffer.
3. Position size. Solved from the distance between entry and stop, so the dollar risk is the number you fixed in advance (1 to 2% of the account when you're new, never more than 4%).
4. Total exposure. Add up the risk on every open position that moves with this one.
5. Entry and exit plan. Entry trigger, order type, target from chart structure and the 1:3 check. Leverage is chosen here, last.
6. Journal. Levels, reasoning and how you felt.
7. Review. On a schedule, check the journal for whether each step was followed.

With $100 of fixed risk, a stop 1,000 dollars away on Bitcoin allows 0.1 BTC, and a stop 500 dollars away allows 0.2 BTC. Step three has no answer until step two exists.

What does the Decision Protocol look like on a real trade?

Illustrative: a $10,000 account risking 1% ($100), inside the beginner range.

• Thesis: 4-hour uptrend from top-down analysis. On the 1-hour, Bitcoin has equal lows at 60,000. We expect a sweep, then a move back to the range high at 62,400: the equal lows strategy.
• Invalidation: Price wicks to 59,500 and reclaims 60,000. Back below 59,500, the sweep has failed. The stop goes at 59,500.
• Position size: Entry at 60,200 after the reclaim. Stop distance is 700. $100 divided by 700 is about 0.143 BTC, roughly $8,600 of exposure.
• Total exposure: One altcoin long is already open, risking $100, and it tracks Bitcoin closely. Combined correlated risk is $200, or 2%, inside the ceiling.
• Entry and exit: The target at 62,400 is 2,200 away, a 1:3.14 ratio, so it passes the 1:3 filter. On isolated margin at 5x, about $1,720 of margin is used and liquidation sits far below the stop.
• Journal: Screenshot, levels, reason for entry, emotional state.
• Review: The weekly review asks "did I make all seven decisions in order?" Not "did it win." That one's a coin flip question, right?

A trader grades the process. A gambler grades the outcome.

Where did the Decision Protocol come from, and what plugs into it?

The Decision Protocol is Chad Wittfeldt's own framework. It formalises the order he teaches in the contract size training: market structure gives the stop, the stop gives the size, and only then does the order go in. We teach it in the Mastermind and review trades against it.

Timeframe imposition shapes step two: a higher timeframe thesis has its invalidation further away, so the stop is wider and the size smaller while the dollar risk stays the same. The 1:3 filter lives in step five. Unemotional risk capital sits behind step three.

In Chad's words: "When you don't have a process, you don't have anything to fall back to. When you don't have anything to fall back to, that's when the emotions come up."

How do people break the Decision Protocol?

They run it backwards. A trader decides "$500 at 20x" first, then hunts for a stop that fits. The stop lands wherever the arithmetic needs it, not where the chart proves the idea wrong, and the risk number stops meaning ANYTHING.

The second way is dropping the journal and the review. Those two steps turn the protocol into a feedback loop. Without them, you repeat the same error with perfect discipline.

Where do you start with the Decision Protocol?

Write the seven answers down before you touch the order screen. If step two is blank, there's no step three... and no trade.

Keep going: the Decision Protocol guide, crypto risk management and the position size calculator.