Daily Drawdown at Crypto Prop Firms: Limits, Reset Times and Examples

Crypto prop firm daily drawdown is the largest loss your account may take between one daily reset and the next, and because crypto never stops trading, each firm has to pick the moment its day begins. Limits run from 2% to 5% of a reference figure, and some firms take that figure from closed balance while others use live equity. The percentage is easy to find; the reset time and the reference are what catch traders out. This page explains both, lists every firm's clock, and works through examples on BTC and ETH positions.

How crypto prop firm daily drawdown is calculated

The floor for the day is set once, at the reset:

• Daily floor = reference at reset × (1 − daily limit)
• Daily room = current equity − daily floor

Example. A $25,000 Crypto Fund Trader 1-Phase account has a 4% limit set off its 00:05 UTC balance. If that snapshot reads $25,600, the line until the following snapshot is $24,576 and the day's room is $1,024. A winning day lifts tomorrow's floor; a losing day lowers it. Because the floor is recalculated each day rather than fixed to the start balance, it is not the same thing as the overall maximum drawdown.

Balance or equity: which reference your firm uses

Balance-based. The floor comes from closed balance and ignores open trades. Breakout snapshots closed balance only, with open trades left out, at 00:30 UTC. Crypto Fund Trader's 2-phase accounts take their snapshot five minutes past midnight UTC. SizeProp takes the balance at 20:00 UTC but checks the floor against equity.

Equity-based. Open profit or loss at the reset feeds into the reference. HyperPNL takes an equity snapshot at midnight UTC, and HyroTrader now bases every challenge on opening equity for the day. FTMO recalculates at midnight Central European time and checks on equity. AquaFunded and BrightFunded use whichever of balance or equity is higher, and WenCrypto lists its type as equity/balance.

Worked example on ETH. A $50,000 account with a 3% limit holds an ETH long worth $40,000 that is up $800 when the reset arrives.

The trade and the price path are identical, yet the equity-based account has less than a third of the cushion. An unbanked gain at the reset raises your own floor.

Does any firm trail the daily high?

A trailing daily limit measures the allowance from the day's peak instead of the reset value, so the room shrinks as the day goes well. None of the firms we track publishes one now. HyroTrader's Standard plan worked this way until its October 2026 relaunch, which switched all its challenges to a fixed limit off opening equity and dropped the Swing add-on that used to be sold separately.

To see why it mattered: on a $20,000 account with a $600 daily allowance, a day that climbs to $20,500 would have a trailing floor of $19,900 against a fixed floor of $19,400, so a $650 give-back from the high fails one and leaves the other with $450 to spare.

TradeXProp runs something different again: a 3% band in both directions from the previous day's equity. If equity swings by over 3% of initial balance in either direction and positions close and the account locks until the next 5 PM New York reset, so it caps daily profit as well as loss.

Reset times, firm by firm

Most crypto-first firms reset by 00:30 UTC. The multi-asset firms kept their forex clocks, and those shift by an hour when daylight saving starts and ends, on different dates in the US and Europe. A UTC reset never moves. If your firm uses a New York or European anchor, check your alarm in March and again in October or November.

What a market that never closes does to the limit

Your daily limit keeps working while you sleep, through Saturday and Sunday, and during every funding settlement.

Positions across the reset. At an equity-based firm the open result at the reset becomes part of tomorrow's reference, as the ETH table shows.

Weekends. Saturday and Sunday are full trading days at every crypto-first firm. The Sunday reset is no different from a midweek one, except that you are probably away from the screen. The weekend holding page covers fees and forced closes.

Funding. Perpetual contracts settle funding on fixed timers. Bybit does it three times a day (midnight, 08:00 and 16:00 UTC); Hyperliquid does it hourly. Kraken Prop levies its own 0.033% per day in four-hour slices. Velotrade takes 0.05% per day from any crypto position still open when its day rolls over. On a $40,000 BTC position, Velotrade's charge is $20 a day, taken straight out of equity whether price moves or not.

Which firms allow the most room

Five percent is the usual figure on two-step products and 3% the usual one-step figure. Dropping the daily limit is not a gift. Those three plans (Spark at Breakout, Lite at Kraken Prop, Turbo at Upscale) swap it for a maximum floor that follows your gains, covered on trailing vs static drawdown.

Six habits that keep you off the floor

1. Put the reset in your own calendar. Convert it once to local time and set a recurring alert. Re-check twice a year if your firm uses a New York or European clock.
2. Size from equity. At an equity-based firm the open result is already in the floor, so sizing from the balance overstates your room.
3. Budget for funding. Keep enough room above the floor to absorb the next settlement on every open perpetual.
4. Flatten before the reset at equity-based firms. Closing a winner before midnight UTC stops it lifting your own floor; closing a loser avoids carrying a worse reference into the next day.
5. Stop at half. On a 4% limit, stop trading after a 2% losing day. The remaining half covers a wick, slippage or a funding debit.
6. Size for the weekend. A BTC position should survive a 5% move inside one day's limit. On a 3% limit that means BTC exposure capped at 60% of the account; on a $10,000 account, $6,000. Our position size calculator does this for any limit and stop.

Daily vs maximum drawdown

A single bad session can trip the daily line while the account-wide floor is nowhere near, which is why the daily number deserves most of your attention. Model both limits together on the drawdown calculator, compare all firms on the rules hub, and read how specific firms apply theirs in the Breakout review, the HyperPNL review and the Crypto Fund Trader review.