A take profit order is the opposite of a stop loss.

Both a stop loss and a take profit trade are a stop limit or a stop market trade. In a long trade, a stop loss is set at a price below the entry price to prevent the trader from losing too much capital if the trade goes against him.

In a long trade, a take profit is set at price above the the entry price that the trader believes the price will hit before reversing, thus locking in profits automatically without the trader needing to monitor the trade themselves.

Obviously the trader can be wrong in three ways when choosing a take profits level. First, the price may hit just below their take profit level before crashing down to their stop loss. Second, the price may shoot well past their take profit and they miss out on even more profit.

Imagine in the bull market of 2017 if you purchased BTC at $8k with a price target of $9k and then it later shot all the way up to $20k.

This is why many traders do not do take profits and instead either close positions manually, or with stop losses.