Long and Short Meme Coins in a Prop Challenge: How Both Directions Work

Long and short in plain words and numbers

Go long DOGE with a $1,000 position and a 5% rise makes you $50, while a 5% fall costs you $50. A $1,000 short does the reverse. You never need to own the coin to short it: on Fundex24 you do not buy or hold coins at all, and every position follows Binance Futures prices, so both directions are available on every market, meme coins included.

One asymmetry is worth knowing from the start. A long can lose at most its whole position value, and only if the price goes to zero. A short has no such ceiling: if the coin doubles, the short loses its full position value, and if it triples, twice that. On meme coins this is not theory; MARSCOIN roughly doubled in a single day on 3 September 2026.

Where a prop challenge fits in

A prop challenge is a paid test of your trading. You pay a one-time fee, $29 for a $3,000 account, $59 for $6,000 or $89 for $10,000, and trade that account under fixed rules: 10% profit in stage 1 and 8% in stage 2, at least 5 trading days in each, and no breach of a 5% daily or 10% maximum drawdown. Pass both stages and you can request a funded account with an 80% profit split.

The fee is the most you can lose on one challenge, and it is not refunded if you fail. Funded accounts at Fundex24 are simulated for evaluation. The wider rulebook is summarized in the rules every prop trader should know.

The same meme coin, long and short, on a $10,000 account

Take a $10,000 account, a 1% risk of $100 and the 1000PEPE/USDT market. With the stop 5% from the entry, the position is $100 ÷ 5% = $2,000. At 1:10 leverage it ties up $200 of margin, and the loss at the stop is still $100.

The long

You go long with the stop 5% below the entry. If 1000PEPE falls 5%, the stop closes the trade for a $100 loss. If it rises 10%, the position gains $200.

The short

You go short with the stop 5% above the entry. If 1000PEPE rises 5%, the stop closes the trade for a $100 loss. If it falls 10%, the position gains $200.

The difference shows when the stop is missing. A 30% move against either position costs $600 and breaks the $500 daily limit of a day that starts at $10,000. But a crash can never take a price below zero, while a pump can keep going, so the short’s worst case has no floor.

Why shorting meme coins is dangerous in a different way

Meme coins can pump hard and fast, and a sharp pump against traders who are short, a short squeeze, can be violent. Price runs through the levels where shorts keep their stops, those stops close positions by buying, and the buying pushes the price higher still.

That is why the stop above the entry has to be in place before the pump, not after. Fundex24 watches equity as well as balance, so the daily limit counts the floating loss: a $3,000 short caught by a 17% spike shows a $510 floating loss, past the $500 limit of a day that starts at $10,000, and the account closes even if the price falls straight back.

Size the short from a stop that sits beyond the recent wicks, and never widen it once the pump starts. For scale, 龙虾 roughly quadrupled over 11 and 12 September 2026; a $500 short held through those two days without a stop would have been down about $1,500, three times the daily limit.

What Fundex24 traders did: about two thirds shorts

Between 14 August and 13 September 2026, about two thirds (67.5%) of meme coin trades on Fundex24 challenge and funded accounts were shorts. Some coins were shorted far more than others: MARSCOIN 82%, PUMP 81% and TUT 80%. DOGE went the other way, with more longs than shorts and 44% of its trades short.

That is an observation about behavior, not advice, and it says nothing about whether the shorts made money. It does show that shorting meme coins is common, which makes the squeeze risk above worth taking seriously. The per-coin figures are in September’s meme coin data report.

Hedging: a long and a short on the same pair

Hedging means holding a long and a short on the same pair at the same time, and it is allowed on Fundex24. It is also widely misunderstood, because a hedge freezes a floating loss rather than removing it.

Say you are long 1000PEPE with a $2,000 position and the price has dropped 4%, so the long shows an $80 floating loss. Opening a $2,000 short on the same pair locks that result: from then on the two positions move against each other, and equity stays about $80 down whatever the price does. Equity counts both sides, so those $80 still sit against your daily limit.

Getting out is the hard part. Close the short and the long is fully exposed again; close the long and the short is. You still have to decide on a direction, so a hedge buys time rather than solving anything, and a stop set before the trade is usually the simpler tool.

Rules that apply to both directions

• Drawdown: 5% of the day’s starting balance per day and a fixed floor 10% below the initial balance, $500 and $9,000 on a $10,000 account, with floating losses counted on longs and shorts alike.
• High-risk trade: in the challenge stages, a single position that makes more than 60% of the stage’s profit target does not have its profit counted. A crash can make one short carry the stage: a $2,000 short on a 40% drop makes $800, well above the $600 line of a $10,000 stage 1.
• Margin: isolated margin only, so each position carries its own margin; cross margin is prohibited.
• Leverage: up to 1:10 in either direction. It sets the margin, not the loss at the stop.
• Trading days: a close with at least $25 of profit or loss on $10,000 counts, whichever direction the trade was.
• Copying: identical trades copied across several challenges are prohibited and fail every related challenge, longs and shorts alike.
• News: trading around news is allowed in both directions.

The complete conditions are on the Fundex24 rules page.

A checklist before you long and short meme coins

Run through these questions before either kind of trade. If one answer is missing, the trade waits.

• Direction: why this way, and which price would prove the idea wrong?
• Stop: below the entry for a long, above it for a short, beyond the wicks the coin usually prints.
• Size: the dollar risk divided by the stop distance, whatever the leverage.
• Daily room: 5% of today’s starting balance minus today’s losses, with every open position counted.
• A fast move your way: would the profit stay under 60% of the stage target?
• Correlation: if you hold several meme coin shorts, would one squeeze hit all of them at once?

Sizing and stop placement are covered in meme coin risk management in a challenge, and the extra risks of a fresh listing in trading newly listed meme coins. When you are ready, compare the challenge plans.

Meme coins are highly volatile in both directions, and a squeeze or a crash can reach a loss limit before you have time to react. Funded accounts at Fundex24 are simulated for evaluation, and no earnings are promised.

Frequently asked questions

Can I short meme coins in a Fundex24 challenge?

Yes. Long and short are allowed on every market, meme coins included, in both challenge stages and on the funded account.

Is shorting riskier than going long?

The rules are the same, but the worst case differs. A price cannot fall below zero while a pump has no ceiling, so a short needs its stop at least as much as a long does.

Is hedging allowed?

Yes, you can hold a long and a short on the same pair. The hedge freezes a floating loss rather than removing it, and equity counts both positions.

Is leverage different for shorts?

No. Leverage goes up to 1:10 in either direction, with isolated margin only.

Why were most meme coin trades on Fundex24 shorts?

The data shows what traders did, not why. About two thirds of meme coin trades in the period were shorts, and that says nothing about whether those trades were profitable.