Leverage
Leverage lets you open a position larger than the money you put up, using that money as margin. It multiplies gains and losses alike, and the higher the multiple, the smaller the price move needed to wipe out your margin.
How leverage works
Hyperliquid's docs show maximum leverage that varies by asset, from 3x to 40x. With 10x leverage, a 1,000 dollar position needs 100 dollars of margin. The venue requires you to keep enough equity to cover the position's losses, and falling below that level triggers liquidation.
Why higher multiples are fragile
Hyperliquid says maintenance margin is half the initial margin at an asset's maximum leverage, ranging from 1.25% at 40x to 16.7% at 3x. A high-leverage position therefore has little room for an adverse move.
Safer habits
Treat margin as money you can lose entirely. Size positions so that a normal swing in the asset does not reach your liquidation price, and prefer isolated margin if you want to cap loss per position. Understand that stop orders can fill beyond their trigger in fast markets. This explainer is educational, does not recommend leverage, and some regions restrict leveraged crypto products.
Leverage versus position size
Leverage and position size are different numbers. Your position size is what the market sees, and leverage is just the ratio of that size to your margin. Two traders with the same 10x leverage but different margin carry very different dollar risk. Always compare the notional size of the position with the amount you could afford to lose, and check the venue's displayed liquidation price before confirming an order.
Common mistakes
Using the maximum available leverage because the venue allows it is the usual error. The maximum is a limit set by the venue, not a recommendation. Another is stacking correlated positions in cross margin, where one adverse move can pressure the whole account balance.
Also confirm which assets you are posting as margin. If your margin is itself a volatile token, a price fall can hurt the position and the collateral at the same time.
Where this shows up
- Hyperliquid — Perps traders outside the US who want onchain order-book trading from their own wallet, with fees that drop by volume and HYPE staking.
- dYdX — Non-US, non-UK, non-Canadian traders who want an open-source, order-book perps venue with volume-tiered fees.
- GMX — Traders who want oracle-priced perps on Arbitrum or Avalanche, including gold, oil and US index markets, without an order book.
- Drift — Former Drift users and Solana perps traders evaluating Velocity, the post-exploit relaunch of Drift.
- Jupiter Perps — Solana users already on Jupiter who want high-leverage SOL, ETH or BTC perps against the JLP pool.
- Aster — Non-US, non-UK traders who want zero maker fees on order-book perps, very high leverage modes, or privacy-shielded orders.
Sources
Last checked . Fees and terms change often; the venue's own page wins if it disagrees with ours.
- Perpetual assets (Hyperliquid docs) — checked 2026-10-17
- Liquidations (Hyperliquid docs) — checked 2026-10-17