Crypto Leverage Trading Explained: Risks, Rewards & Strategy

Cryptocurrencies have introduced numerous ways for individuals to boost their earnings. One оф тхем is through leverage trading. This trading strategy allows traders to borrow funds to gain exposure to crypto markets with little capital. The goal? To potentially increase their earnings.

Despite its inherent risk, crypto leverage trading has become one of the go-to strategies for traders today.

Little wonder that services like Hyperliquid and Aster have quickly emerged as leading platforms in the crypto industry.

This article discusses how leverage trading works, the risks involved, and everything in between.

Main Takeaways:

• Leverage trading allows you to borrow funds and control larger positions, but it increases both profit and the potential for higher losses.
• Collateral and margin determine your leverage – positions can be liquidated if losses exceed your coverage.
• Major risks include funding costs, volatility, margin calls, and platform failures.
• Good risk management is absolutely critical to avoid major losses.

What Leverage Trading Is and How It Works

Leverage trading is a strategy that allows traders to control a position larger than their initial deposit. This is possible because the trader gains access to borrowed funds to bolster their market exposure. With this leveraged amount, they can make more gains or losses due to increased exposure.

When using a crypto derivatives platform, a trader must deposit an initial amount, called collateral, to access leverage trading. This deposited asset acts as security when they borrow funds to amplify their trading position. From their collateral, the trader allocates a portion to open a position. This portion is called the margin. Traders can increase their margin to maintain or protect an existing position.

Notably, the margin is always considerably smaller than the total trading position size. This is because, upon providing margin, the trader can access the leverage ratio feature. This refers to the number of times a trader’s capital is being leveraged. For instance, a 10x leverage means that the trader multiplies their margin by ten. In other words, the trader can use $1 to control a $10 position.

When trading using leverage, the market may move against the user’s position. As a result, they could lose their initial margin if their collateral is insufficient to cover losses and maintain their margin position. When this happens, the platform automatically liquidates the trader’s positions using the margin while ensuring the borrowed portion of the position is not affected. Although this puts the trader at a loss, it helps to prevent further losses.

Traders can avoid liquidation by depositing more collateral to boost their existing position and stay above the liquidation level. Conversely, they can reduce their position size to avoid liquidation.

Centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges offer leverage trading. The major difference is that decentralized platforms offer higher leverage than their centralized counterparts. This is why many traders have flocked to these decentralized platforms to bolster their earning potential.

Types of Leverage Products

Users can trade with leverage through various services. Here is a breakdown of products through which leverage trading can occur:

Perpetual futures

Perpetual futures are a type of derivatives contracts that allow traders to speculate on the price of a cryptocurrency without actually holding the asset. Unlike standard futures, perpetual futures do not have expiration dates. This implies that users can hold a trading position indefinitely, as long as they can meet the margin call (liquidation level). Users can take a long or short position while trading.

Standard futures

Crypto futures are financial contracts serving as an agreement to buy or sell cryptocurrencies at a predetermined price on a specified date. Aside from the expiration date, standard futures have identical properties to perpetual futures. This means that traders can execute long or short trades using leverage.

Margin trading pairs

Margin trading involves using borrowed funds to trade cryptocurrencies. It essentially increases the trader’s buying power. Notably, margin trading is a form of leverage trading. Margin trading pairs are currency pairs, such as ETH/USDC and BTC/USDT, that traders use to explore margin trading.

Options with embedded leverage

Options trading is a form of trading in which traders have the right (the option), but not the obligation, to buy (call) or sell (put) a crypto asset at a particular price (strike price) within a set period. Like other forms of derivatives trading, users can trade options with leverage, allowing them to gain exposure to larger positions with small capital.

Key Risks in Leverage Trading

Leverage trading is undoubtedly a risky way to make money in crypto. Due to its extreme volatility, traders put themselves in positions where they either net meteoric profits or substantial losses. However, identifying the most common risks is vital if traders are to avoid them. Here are the key risks in leverage trading:

Liquidation and margin calls

Traders face a margin call when market prices go against their leveraged positions. As a result, the exchange on which they trade asks them to either add more funds or close the position(s) since their equity is below the required maintenance margin level. Hence, traders need to closely monitor the margin call to downsize the risk of being liquidated.

Volatility risk

Cryptocurrencies are known to be volatile assets, moving up and down sharply. This volatility is what enables traders to either rake in massive profits or suffer losses within a short timeframe. As a result, traders must bear the risks associated with frequent price volatility.

Funding rate impact

Funding rate refers to the percentage of periodic payments made between traders to ensure that futures prices align with those of spot prices for each cryptocurrency. To make it happen, traders with long positions have to pay those with short positions if the funding rate is positive (bullish). This happens when futures prices are higher than spot prices. Conversely, traders with short positions have to pay those with long positions when futures prices are lower than spot prices (bearish).

How does this affect traders? Funding payments increase the cost of holding a position, and these costs add up over time, pushing traders closer to liquidation if prices move against them.

Platform-specific risk factors

When trading cryptocurrencies, it is essential to remember that each trading platform has the risk of experiencing discrepancies that can affect traders. For instance, they could fall prey to security breaches, suffer from critical bugs in the trading interface, or go bankrupt.

Potential Rewards and When They Occur

While leveraged crypto trading risks make traders susceptible to potential losses, the market chart could move in their favor, enabling them to net massive profits. Here are potential rewards that traders can receive:

Amplified exposure

Leverage trading offers traders the luxury of amplifying their exposure to their desired cryptocurrencies. This way, when prices soar, they receive significant profits, pay off the borrowed fund, and pocket the rest. However, it is worth noting that amplified exposure pays the trader when prices move in alignment with their leveraged positions.

Hedging uses

Hedging in crypto trading involves taking a position to counter an existing position. To illustrate, imagine a trader takes a primary position on bitcoin (BTC). Concerned that BTC’s value could drop, affecting the trade, the user decides to take another position that will make a profit if BTC drops. This way, they reduce or eliminate the risks of losing money while trading. It also presents an opportunity to earn whether prices go up or down.

Capital efficiency benefits

Traders apply capital efficiency when they use the least amount of their capital to gain exposure to a maximum trading position. This way, they stand in line for potential profits if the asset’s price increases.

Leverage Trading Costs

While engaging in leverage trading, traders incur some expenses they must cover along the way. Here is a breakdown of these costs:

Funding payments

Funding payments are periodic fees transferred between traders holding long or short positions. Recall that we discussed funding rates, citing that it is the percentage of periodic amounts traders pay one another to ensure futures and spot prices align. Funding payment is the amount actually being paid.

Trading fees

Trading fees are charges that crypto exchanges and brokers impose on traders whenever they buy, sell, or swap cryptocurrencies. The trading fee is usually calculated using a maker-taker model. Makers are those who add liquidity to the market. They often pay a lower fee. Takers, on the other hand, are those removing liquidity from the market. They usually pay higher fees. Various crypto trading platforms also implement a tiered fee structure, where fees decrease as trading volume increases over a specified timeframe.

Hidden costs in derivatives markets

Various derivative trading platforms charge traders hidden fees that are not immediately noticeable. In some cases, the platform does not notify users about these expenses, which is why they are called hidden costs. These hidden fees include spread cost, auto-deleverage (ADL) events, borrowing Interest (Spot Margin Borrowing on CEXs), network fees, slippage, inactivity fees, and several platform fees.

Core Strategies for Using Leverage Responsibly

While being an extremely volatile means to trade cryptocurrencies, leverage trading can be used responsibly. Here are various strategies that can be adopted to ensure efficient usage:

Position sizing

Position sizing is a risk-management measure traders use to determine how much of their capital should be used to create a position. The trader will consider various factors, such as their risk tolerance and the asset’s volatility, when deciding their position sizing. This way, no single trade can land the trader in significant losses.

Stop-loss placement

A stop-loss (SL) is another risk-management tool traders use to limit losses. It involves setting an order with the trading platform to automatically sell a cryptocurrency or close a position when the cryptocurrency falls to a predetermined price. This way, the trader only sees small losses rather than huge ones, thanks to the stop-loss placement.

Risk-reward planning

The Risk-Reward Ratio (RRR) is a metric that helps traders compare the expected profit with the potential losses associated with a trade. To achieve this, the trader would set an entry price, a stop-loss price, and a target price to take profit. Next, they would calculate the risk-reward ratio to determine whether the potential gain is worth the risk.

Using isolated vs. cross margin

Traders implement an isolated margin when they use only a fraction of their collateral to enter trades. Conversely, cross margin involves the use of the entire collateral to create trading positions. Beginner traders and risk-controlled users opt for isolated margin so that even in the eventuality of a liquidation, only a portion of their capital would be affected. Cross margin is preferred by experienced traders seeking to use their entire balance for leverage or explore hedging strategies.

Common Mistakes Traders Make

As profitable as crypto leverage trading is, the fact remains that some traders have lost some or all of their trading capital to the trading strategy. Here are common mistakes most traders make that cause these losses:

Overleveraging

Overleveraging occurs when a trader uses a leverage that is significantly higher than their capital. While this presents the opportunity to lock in sizeable profits, it also poses the risk of netting catastrophic losses if the market moves unfavorably. Psychological factors that move traders to engage in overleveraging include overconfidence and the urge to recover losses from previous trades. To mitigate this issue, traders should implement self-discipline and stick to a safe level when trading with leverage.

Misreading funding trends

Crypto analytics platforms help traders to monitor the latest trends on funding rates of the derivatives market. Positive funding rates indicate that the market is bullish, signaling a good time to buy, and vice versa. However, a failure to accurately read the funding trends could cause traders to make a financial decision in opposition to the prevalent market trends at the time.

Ignoring liquidity conditions

As most traders get immersed in their trading activities, they tend to forget to monitor their liquidity conditions. Low liquidity leads to higher slippage. This means orders can fill at worse prices than expected, which may push a position closer to liquidation. This could also happen when traders leave their trading screens to do other things. To fix this, traders should always monitor market charts to avoid sudden liquidations. If they are unsure whether they would be available to monitor the charts, they should close the trade or use trading bots that track their market positions.

Emotional decision-making

Whenever crypto prices swing, emotions can move traders to switch from a well-planned trading decision to impulsive actions based on fear, greed, or excitement. In many cases, traders often regret when prices go south. Therefore, it is vital that traders exercise self-discipline and stick with their trading plans, downsizing the execution of emotion-driven decisions. Most successful traders are individuals who have learnt to tame their emotions while trading.

Differences Across Exchanges and Platforms

Traders can access leveraged trading through centralized exchanges (CEXs), such as Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Coinbase, or through decentralized platforms, such as Hyperliquid, Aster, dYdX, and Lighter. Both have their benefits and downsides. Here’s a comparison between them:

Fee structures

Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Hyperliquid have cheaper fees than their centralized counterparts. For instance, Hyperliquid offers a maker fee of 0.01% and a taker fee of 0.035% with no gas fees for trading. The fee is reduced when a trader holds and stakes HYPE, the project’s flagship cryptocurrency.

On the other hand, the leading CEX, Binance, offers a flat spot trading fee of 0.1%. It also implements a futures trading fee starting at 0.02% for makers and 0.05% for takers. BingX, on the other hand, leverages similar fees but with a different structure. The same is true for exchanges like Coinbase, Bybit, and many more.

Liquidation engines

Liquidation engines are risk-management mechanisms that crypto exchanges and platforms implement to save traders from losing too much money from high-leveraged trades. DEXs are widely known for offering significantly higher leverage than CEXs. Aster, for example, offers up to 1,001x. Conversely, CEXs like OKX and Binance provide a maximum leverage of 125x.

Recall that higher leverage exposes traders to increased risk of losing their trading capital. DEXs also tend to liquidate traders more quickly because they lack features that CEXs rely on, such as insurance funds, partial liquidation mechanisms, and ADL buffers. Hence, trading on DEXs at their peak leverage exposes traders to a liquidation engine that liquidates them more quickly than CEXs would. As a result, CEXs are a better option for traders who do not want to get liquidated quickly.

Asset availability

Most CEXs employ a strict crypto listing procedure that digital assets must meet before being listed for spot or futures trading. Because of this, it may take some time before some assets become available for traders on CEXs to access. In some cases, cryptocurrencies that are unable to meet the criteria are delisted from crypto exchanges.

In the case of DEXs, the listing process is straightforward, making cryptocurrencies available to traders quickly. Still, crypto project owners listing on DEXs must have the technical expertise to provide the token’s contracts, create liquidity pools, and ensure all necessary details are met.

Collateral choices

When depositing capital to use as collateral for leveraged trading, CEXs offer users various options. For example, traders can choose from BTC, ETH, SOL, USDT, USDC, and other cryptocurrencies to use as collateral. Some, like Binance, even allow users to use tokenized assets, such as BlackRock’s BUIDL, as collateral for trading.

On the other hand, decentralized platforms offer fewer collateral options. Most of them allow users to use stablecoins or their native token as collateral.

Tools and Metrics for Leverage Traders

Whether you are new or experienced in leverage trading, there are various indicators and metrics to keep an eye on, as their current status can help traders make well-informed decisions. These indicators, which are accessible on crypto analytics platforms, include:

Open interest

Open Interest (OI) is the total number of open positions in a specific futures contract. A higher open interest shows that there is new money (liquidity) entering the market, indicating that traders can enter or exit positions at fair market prices. Conversely, a falling OI indicates that money is leaving the market.

Funding rates

Funding rates are a metric that shows the percentage of funding payments. For context, funding payments are periodic payments (typically every 8 hours) that traders exchange between themselves to ensure that futures prices are in accordance with spot prices. When the funding rate is positive, long traders pay short traders, and vice versa. Traders can use the funding rate as a sentiment indicator to ascertain when market participants are heavily interested in long trades, and vice versa.

Order book depth

An order book is a compilation of buy and sell orders displayed in real time. Order book depth refers to the number of buy and sell orders at different price levels within the order book. They can either be deep or shallow. A deep order book with a high volume of buy and sell orders indicates that the market is highly liquid. This way, large trades can be executed easily without significantly affecting the crypto asset’s price. Conversely, a shallow order book, accompanied by a smaller volume of orders, indicates a less liquid market. As a result, large trades can trigger major price swings.

Volatility indicators

A volatility indicator is a tool used to ascertain how much and how fast a cryptocurrency plummets over time. Highly volatile market charts are represented by widening bands, while low volatility is defined by narrowing bands. Traders monitor this indicator to help determine prevalent price swings, set realistic price targets, and appropriately set their stop-loss, alongside other trading parameters.

Conclusion

Leverage trading is undoubtedly one of the most lucrative ways to earn in the crypto industry. It is also one of the fastest ways to lose your entire capital. Given its underlying risks, it is essential that traders understand how the trading strategy works and how to make the most of it. It is also essential to know various strategies to follow to ensure one trades responsibly. This article highlighted all of these, along with common mistakes traders make. With this information, a beginner or experienced trader can make efficient leveraged trades. At the same time, they are urged to conduct further research to make well-informed financial decisions.