⚠️ Risk & Ratio Management

Copy trading can amplify profits — but it can amplify losses even faster.

Even if you follow top-performing wallets, poor configuration can drain your balance quickly.

Effective risk management doesn't eliminate losses.

Its purpose is to ensure one bad trade never wipes you out and that you survive long enough to benefit from the leaders you follow.

When you copy a wallet, your account mirrors their actions — but not their bankroll, risk tolerance, or portfolio structure.

This is why disciplined limits and filters matter.

Olympus provides several layers of protection, but the user must apply them intentionally.

😬 Risk Management

1️⃣ Don't Go All-In

• Never allocate your entire balance to one strategy, one wallet, or one market.
• Preserve at least 50% of your total balance as a recovery buffer.
• The goal is longevity, not maximizing size on every trade.

2️⃣ Follow the 5% Rule

A simple survival guideline:

Risk no more than ~5% of your total wallet per trade.

Example: If your balance is $1,000 → keep any single trade at or below ~$50.

This cap prevents a single bad prediction from derailing your entire portfolio.

3️⃣ Manage Trade Volume

Many high-volume traders open dozens of orders per day. Copying that behavior without limits can over-leverage your balance immediately.

Olympus allows you to set:

• Max Trades per Market (e.g., limit to 2 entries)
• Max Trades per Wallet (24h) (e.g., cap at 10 trades per leader per day)

These controls prevent trade spam, reduce exposure creep, and maintain predictable risk.

4️⃣ Filter Out Bad or Illiquid Markets

Under Risk & Market Filters, you can avoid markets that are statistically dangerous or operationally illiquid.

Useful protections include:

These filters protect you from copying trades that your balance cannot realistically support.

5️⃣ Use Stop-Loss & Take-Profit

Automated exits keep losses contained and lock in profits without requiring manual monitoring.

Useful for wallets trading highly volatile or fast-moving events.

6️⃣ Avoid Irrelevant or Ultra-Long Markets

Within Copy Behaviour Settings, you can skip:

• ⏱ Markets expiring too far into the future
• 💵 Microtrades
• 😅 Events outside your preferred timeframe

This helps keep your capital liquid and avoids being stuck in positions for weeks or months unnecessarily.

💡 Tip: You can access all these settings by opening the ⚙️ cogwheel next to any followed wallet.

💡 Best Practices

• ✅ Start small — use minimal ratios and trade caps first.
• ✅ Cap per-market and per-wallet trades.
• ✅ Diversify your followed wallets and categories.
• ✅ Check your dashboard often — adjust settings as your balance changes.

📉 Understand Time-Decay Markets (YES Loses Most of the Time)

Many prediction markets function like theta-decay products: as time passes without confirmation, the YES side bleeds value.

Unless there is strong reason to believe in early resolution, YES positions lose in ~80% of time-decay markets.

Risk Implications:

• Copying a leader who overuses YES can overexpose you to structurally losing trades
• For long-duration markets, default expectation is slow bleed, not appreciation
• Your ratio + max trade size should be especially conservative for wallets that play YES-heavy strategies

💸 Spread Costs Matter More Than Users Realize

Crossing a 3–5¢ spread repeatedly destroys expected return.

If a leader wallet always hits the ask/bid instead of resting limit orders, their strategy might be unprofitable even with correct predictions.

Copy-trading impact:

• You inherit their spread losses automatically
• Your smaller balance amplifies the effect (fees + slippage matter more at smaller sizes)
• Use Max Trade Size + Minimum Odds filters to avoid copying bad spread entries

🧘 Avoid High-Noise, High-Churn Traders

Leaders trading 10–20 categories simultaneously typically:

• Chase too many narratives
• Lack specialization
• Enter positions they have not researched deeply

Specialization correlates with profitability.

You should lower your ratio or avoid copying wallets that:

• Jump between sports, politics, crypto, weather, etc.
• Show inconsistent market themes
• Have high trade volume with no coherent pattern

🚨 Common Mistakes to Avoid

• ❌ Setting a high ratio without understanding portfolio size differences.
• ❌ Following hyperactive traders with no trade caps.
• ❌ Ignoring odds filters.
• ❌ Assuming Olympus "auto-manages" your risk (it doesn't — you do).

📐 Ratio Management

How to scale trades safely when copying wallets bigger (or smaller) than yours

When you copy trade on Olympus, the ratio determines how much of the leader's trade size your wallet mirrors.

Because leader wallets vary wildly in size, choosing the right ratio is one of the most important parts of risk control.

🚨 Ratio mistakes are the #1 cause of user losses — not bad wallets, not market conditions, not volatility.

1️⃣ What Exactly Is a Ratio?

The ratio is a percentage multiplier applied to the leader's trade.

Example:

• Leader buys $400 YES
• Your ratio = 25%
• ➡ You copy $100 YES (unless your max trade limit is lower)

If ratio is too high, you end up risking much more than the leader relative to your balance.

If ratio is too low, you barely participate.

2️⃣ The Core Idea

Your ratio must reflect your balance vs. the leader's total portfolio size (balance + all active positions).

If a wallet is 500× larger than you, you must copy them at a drastically smaller percentage—otherwise you're overexposed instantly.

3️⃣ Example: User With $1,000 Following a Multi-Million Wallet

Let's say:

• You: $1,000 total portfolio
• Leader: $2,000,000 total portfolio

That means the leader is: 👉 2,000× bigger than you

If the leader risks 3% of their portfolio on a trade:

• 3% of $2,000,000 = $60,000 trade

If you set your ratio to 3% also:

• 3% of your $1,000 = $30 trade

…but here's the catch: you need to match their relative risk, not their percentage.

4️⃣ Safe Ratio Formula (Rule of Thumb)

When following wallets MUCH larger than you, use:

👉 Your Ratio ≈ Your Balance ÷ Leader Balance

Using the earlier example:

$1,000 ÷ $2,000,000 = 0.0005 → 0.05%

That is your safe copying ratio for that leader.

It means:

• If they trade $60,000
• You trade $30

5️⃣ Olympus Makes This Easier

Every wallet in Olympus has a built-in:

🔄 Ratio Recalculator Button

You press it → Olympus recalculates the recommended ratio based on:

• Your current portfolio
• Leader's current portfolio
• All open positions
• Total exposure

This tool updates the safe ratio for you automatically.

⚠️ Note: It updates only when pressed — it is not live.

6️⃣ Example Scenarios

Scenario A: Leader trades $20,000 per position

• You have $1,000
• Using the safe ratio formula: $1,000 ÷ $2,000,000 = 0.05%
• Leader trades $20,000 → You copy 0.05% = $10
• ✅ Safe, stable, sustainable.

Scenario B: Leader trades small amounts ($300–$800)

If the leader is close to your size, you can use:

• 20%
• 50%
• Even 100% ratio

Because the leader's risk profile matches yours more closely.

Scenario C: Leader is a whale who opens 50 trades per day

Even with a correct ratio, your total daily exposure might explode.

To protect yourself:

• Use Max Trades per Wallet (24h)
• Use Max Trades per Market
• Add Max Open Positions limits

The ratio controls per trade risk, but these caps control total account risk.

⚠️ Common Ratio Mistakes

• ❌ Setting 5% ratio for a leader 1,000× bigger
• ❌ Copying whale trades without caps
• ❌ Increasing ratio after a win
• ❌ Using the same ratio for all wallets
• ❌ Ignoring open positions when calculating risk