Margin, notional and the leverage multiplier
Notional (position size) is the full dollar value of the contract you hold. Margin is the collateral you lock to open it. Leverage is the ratio between them:
leverage = notional ÷ margin · margin = notional ÷ leverage
On a perpetual futures venue you are not borrowing coins in the way a margin loan on a spot exchange works; the exchange or on-chain protocol tracks profit and loss on the notional and closes you out when your margin can no longer cover the losses. Leverage therefore does not change what a coin does, only how much of your collateral each tick consumes.
A worked example: $10 into $10,000
You open a long on Bitcoin at an example price of $60,000 with $10 margin at 1000x. Notional is $10 × 1,000 = $10,000, or 0.1667 BTC.
- BTC rises 0.1% to $60,060: the position gains $10.00, which is +100% on your $10 margin.
- BTC rises 1% to $60,600: the gain is $100.00, or +1,000% on margin.
- BTC falls 0.1% to $59,940: the loss would be $10.00, which is all of your margin. You are liquidated before price ever gets there, because the venue closes you while some margin is still left.
The profit side is the reason people look at 1000x. The loss side is what the next section quantifies. Compare the same $10,000 position at 10x: you would post $1,000, and a 0.1% move changes your equity by 1%, which is nothing.
What 100x leverage means
100x is the point where leverage stops being a convenience and becomes the main risk. Margin is 1% of notional: $100 controls $10,000. A 1% price move in your favour doubles the margin, and a 1% move against you erases it. Here is where 100x sits next to the tiers on either side:
| Leverage | Margin per $10,000 | Margin as % of notional | ROE for a 1% price move |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10x | $1,000.00 | 10% | ±10% |
| 25x | $400.00 | 4% | ±25% |
| 50x | $200.00 | 2% | ±50% |
| 100x | $100.00 | 1% | ±100% |
| 200x | $50.00 | 0.5% | ±200% |
| 500x | $20.00 | 0.2% | ±500% |
| 1000x | $10.00 | 0.1% | ±1000% |
At 100x a move of about 1% costs you the whole margin, so the plan has to survive ordinary short-term swings; at 10x the same move costs 10%. Which venues offer 100x is listed on the exchanges with 100x leverage table, and sizing a 100x trade from risk is covered in the high-leverage risk guide. For everyday leverage up to 50x, the leverage calculator is enough.
Where liquidation sits
In short: price only has to move roughly 1/L, less a maintenance margin, against you. The full long and short formulas are in the 1000x liquidation price guide. The table here shows how far price can move against a long before liquidation, using a $60,000 Bitcoin entry and ignoring fees. Two models are shown because venues differ:
- Generic model: liquidation when equity falls to the maintenance margin. Distance = 1/L − MMR, with MMR set at min(0.5%, 0.5/L), the convention used in the liquidation price calculator.
- 80% margin-loss rule: liquidation when 80% of margin is lost. Distance = 0.8/L. This is the rule LeverUp documents for its dedicated 1001x markets; see the LeverUp 1001x guide. Its ordinary markets use 85%.
| Leverage | Margin per $10,000 | Generic distance | Generic $ move (BTC) | 80%-loss distance | 80%-loss $ move (BTC) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10x | $1,000.00 | 9.500% | $5,700.00 | 8.000% | $4,800.00 |
| 25x | $400.00 | 3.500% | $2,100.00 | 3.200% | $1,920.00 |
| 50x | $200.00 | 1.500% | $900.00 | 1.600% | $960.00 |
| 100x | $100.00 | 0.500% | $300.00 | 0.800% | $480.00 |
| 200x | $50.00 | 0.250% | $150.00 | 0.400% | $240.00 |
| 500x | $20.00 | 0.100% | $60.00 | 0.160% | $96.00 |
| 750x | $13.33 | 0.067% | $40.00 | 0.107% | $64.00 |
| 1000x | $10.00 | 0.050% | $30.00 | 0.080% | $48.00 |
| 1001x | $9.99 | 0.050% | $29.97 | 0.080% | $47.95 |
Up to about 50x the two models give similar orders of magnitude. Past 100x the generic cushion collapses toward 1/(2L) because the maintenance margin takes up half of the margin, while the 80% rule keeps a slightly wider fixed fraction. Either way, at 1000x you are betting that Bitcoin will not trade $30 to $48 against you at any point while the trade is open.
Why fees, spread and funding dominate at extreme leverage
Costs are charged on notional while your cushion is a sliver of notional, so they become the main event. The table shows a full open-and-close round trip as a share of your margin, at three illustrative per-side fee rates (0.01% maker-like, 0.035% and 0.06% taker-like):
| Leverage | 0.01% per side | 0.035% per side | 0.06% per side |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10x | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 100x | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 500x | 0% | 0% | 1% |
| 1001x | 0% | 1% | 1% |
At 1001x, a 0.06% taker fee on entry and exit is 120% of margin: you lose more than you posted before price moves at all, which is why some high-leverage venues use fee-free or profit-share models instead. The same logic applies to the bid-ask spread and slippage. If you pay 0.02% to cross the book on entry, a 1000x long starts about 20% of its margin in the red.
Funding works the same way. A perpetual with a 0.01% funding rate every 8 hours charges a $10,000 position $1.00 per interval. On $10 of margin that is 10% every eight hours, 30% a day, if you are on the paying side. On a 10x position with $1,000 margin the same $1.00 is 0.1%. Check live rates on fundingrates.app before holding anything overnight.
What 1000x is realistically used for
Because the position is wiped out by a move smaller than normal tick noise, 1000x is a very short-horizon tool. Traders who use it tend to:
- take a small, fixed, accepted loss (the margin) as the price of a lottery-like payoff;
- pair it with an exit that fires within seconds or minutes, often a take-profit placed very close to entry;
- use isolated margin so a loss cannot spill into the rest of the account.
Rule of thumb: at leverage L, a price move of roughly 1/L (less maintenance margin) liquidates you. If you cannot say what happens to your plan when price moves that far in the first minute, the leverage is too high for the plan.
Next steps
For the exact formulas for long and short positions and BTC and ETH examples, read the 1000x liquidation price guide. To size a position from the loss you are willing to take, use the high-leverage risk guide and the position size calculator. To find where 1000x is actually offered, see the highest leverage exchanges or the comparison table on the home page. Trading at this leverage can lose your whole margin in seconds; none of this is advice.