What a crypto journal has to get right

Crypto trading breaks most journals in three places. A position is rarely one fill: a market order splits into a dozen, a scale-in adds more, and the exit comes in pieces. Fees are charged per fill, sometimes in BNB, sometimes in the quote coin. And leverage makes the position size meaningless as a measure of risk: 0.5 BTC at 10x and 0.5 BTC at 50x look the same in a trade list and are not.

SetupBook keeps the fills, groups them into the position you actually took, keeps the fees as costs, and measures the result against your stop, so a 50x scalp and a spot swing can sit on the same chart.

Bybit, Binance and OKX with a read-only key

Create an API key on the exchange with read permission only, paste it in Settings → Connections, and SetupBook pulls your trade history every hour and whenever you press Sync now.

  • Bybit: USDT perpetuals and spot, up to two years back.
  • Binance: USDⓈ-M futures and spot, the last three months. Futures symbols are found from the account; for spot, list the pairs you trade and the pairs of coins you hold are added by themselves. Keys made in Binance Demo Trading work too.
  • OKX: USDT perpetual swaps and spot, the last three months, with the key's passphrase.

The key is checked before it is stored and kept sealed (AES-256) on the server; the browser never reads it back. On Bybit and Binance, SetupBook reads the key's permissions and warns you if it could trade. It never places orders or moves funds. Funding payments and coin-margined contracts are not counted yet. The platform sync article has the details per exchange.

Fills become positions

The fills of one position, from the first entry to the last exit, become one trade with an average entry, an average exit, the total quantity and the fees summed. Fees paid in BNB are converted to USDT. The platform owns the prices, times and costs of a synced trade and updates them on every sync; your notes, tags, ratings and screenshots stay yours.

Not ready to connect a key? Export the trade history from Binance and import the file, or type a trade in thirty seconds.

The chart around every trade

Open a crypto trade and it shows on real Binance candles: the minutes or hours around it, your entry and exit as markers on the bars, and lines for the average entry, the exit, the stop and the target. Seeing where you got in on the candle is often more honest than any statistic. With the chart open, the worst and the best price before your exit take a second to read off; enter them as MAE and MFE and the exit analysis shows how much of the move you kept.

Leverage changes the size, not the risk

R is the result divided by what you planned to lose at the stop. It does not care about leverage, which is the point: a +2R scalp at 50x and a +2R swing on spot are the same quality of trade. The position size calculator in the trade form takes your balance, the risk percentage, the entry and the stop, and gives the quantity that fits.

A market that never closes

Tag the session of each trade, including off hours, and mark how calm you were at entry. Many crypto traders find their 2 a.m. trades in a column of their own on the dashboard and their worst mistakes on the days they slept badly; the psychology charts put your morning check-in next to the results.

Frequently asked questions

Is SetupBook free for crypto traders?

Yes. Every feature, unlimited trades and accounts, exchange sync included, and no card is asked for.

Can SetupBook trade or withdraw with my key?

No. Use a key with read permission only. SetupBook only reads your trade history, and on Bybit and Binance it warns you if the key you pasted could trade.

Can I connect a Binance Demo Trading account?

Yes. Choose Demo when you add the Binance key; demo keys only work with Demo selected and live keys only with Live. The trades land in a Demo account.

How far back does the first sync go?

Two years on Bybit and three months on Binance and OKX. Older trades can come in from an export file.

Which pairs and contracts are supported?

USDT-margined perpetuals and spot on all three exchanges. Coin-margined (inverse) contracts and funding payments are not counted yet.