Trading is about the efficient use of capital. If it takes you 10,000 to make what someone else can make with 1k, one of you is doing something wrong. What is the difference between a hedge fund that earns 10% and 20%? One could argue that you could invest twice as much money in the 10% hedge fund and earn the same dollar return. True, but then why not invest that same amount of money in the 20% hedge fund? You can't simply discount capital usage as if it was a trivial variable. It is "THE" variable when it comes to trading. Risk can always be swapped around. Not to get rid of it, but rather to enhance the return on capital or lower the variance of your returns. That’s right; your risk based haircut can actually lower the volatility of your returns and achieves better performance. This is called a utility function or improving the utility of your capital.