Before you even choose a leverage level, you make a more important decision: isolated or cross margin. Both determine what capital is actually at risk for a position — and that's a bigger difference than most traders expect going in.
Isolated margin
With isolated margin, you assign a fixed amount of margin to a single position. Only that amount can be lost. If the position moves against you, it gets liquidated once maintenance margin is reached — the rest of your account balance stays untouched.
The advantage: your risk per position is clearly capped and known in advance. The downside: that same cap also means a smaller buffer, since no extra capital automatically steps in when things get tight.
Cross margin
With cross margin, all your open positions share the same overall account balance. If one position moves against you, margin is automatically pulled from other, profitable positions or free balance to delay liquidation.
The advantage: a larger effective buffer, as long as your total account has enough balance. The downside: a single, badly losing position can, in the extreme, put your entire account balance at risk — not just the margin meant for it.
Which mode fits when?
- Isolated: When you want risk per trade clearly capped, e.g. speculative positions on volatile tokens.
- Cross: When you're running several correlated positions and want gains and losses to cushion each other.
Many experienced traders use both modes in parallel — cross for their core holdings, isolated for individual, riskier bets whose loss should be clearly capped.
Calculate your isolated margin buffer →