Contents
One trade or the whole account? That depends on one settingHow fast can you lose money on leverage?What happens if my futures position is liquidated?How people lose the whole account, not just one tradeFour settings that cap the damageOne trade or the whole account? That depends on one setting
When you open a futures trade, the exchange holds part of your money as a deposit for that trade. That deposit is called your margin. If the price moves far enough against you, the exchange closes the trade by itself so the loss stops there — that is liquidation, and there's a full explanation on the what liquidation means page. The real question is which of your money the exchange is allowed to reach for while the trade is alive.
That's the switch in the order window, and the two options are called isolated and cross. With isolated margin, only the money you put into that one position is at risk (as long as auto-add margin is switched off — more on that below). Say you have 100 USDT, you put 20 USDT into one bitcoin trade at 10x and the price goes the wrong way: you lose those 20 USDT and the other 80 stay in your account, untouched. With cross margin, your free balance stands behind the position, so one bad trade can keep pulling from the whole futures wallet until there is nothing left to pull. The choice between cross and isolated margin is the single biggest factor in whether "losing it all" means one trade or everything.
How fast can you lose money on leverage?
Faster than most beginners expect, because leverage shrinks the distance between the current price and the point where the money behind your trade runs out. At 10x, a move of roughly 10% against you is enough to use it up. At 20x it's about 5%. Bitcoin can travel 5% in an hour on a busy day, and a smaller altcoin can do it in minutes.
| Leverage | Rough move against you that uses up your deposit |
|---|---|
| 2x | about 50% |
| 5x | about 20% |
| 10x | about 10% |
| 20x | about 5% |
| 50x | about 2% |
"Against you" means a fall if you are long and a rise if you are short, and the percentages work the same way in both directions. Nothing about 50x is "more profitable" than 5x at the same trade size — it just means a 2% wobble ends your trade. If you are still choosing a number, read what 5x, 10x and 20x actually mean before your first position.
What happens if my futures position is liquidated?
The exchange closes the position at market without asking you, and the money you put into that trade is mostly gone — the loss and the closing fee take it. With isolated margin the damage stops there; with cross margin it carries on into your free balance. Going below zero and owing the exchange is rare, and it's handled separately on the page about ending up in debt to the exchange.
How people lose the whole account, not just one trade
A full account rarely disappears in one trade. It usually goes in a chain. The price moves against a position, the trader adds more money to it to "hold on a bit longer", then opens a second trade in the same direction to average the entry down. Now two losing trades share one balance in cross margin, and the same price move that would have cost 20 USDT costs everything.
The other common chain is emotional: a loss, then a bigger trade to win it back, then a bigger one again. That is the real reason most accounts end at zero, and it's covered in more detail in why beginners lose money on futures.
Four settings that cap the damage
Switch the position to isolated margin
In the order window, before you open the trade, there is a switch between cross and isolated. Isolated means the exchange can only use the money you put into that one trade, and nothing else from your balance. One thing to check on the same screen: if auto-add margin is on, the position can quietly pull more money from your account, so leave it off. On some exchanges new contracts open in cross by default, so check it every time.
Make the position small enough to survive
Decide the most you are willing to lose on this trade — say 5 USDT out of 100 — and size the position so that a stop at your planned level costs roughly that. A trade you can lose calmly is a trade you will actually manage properly.
Set a stop loss the moment you open
A stop loss closes the trade at a price you pick, usually well before liquidation, so you keep most of your money. It isn't perfect in a fast gap — see whether a stop loss guarantees your limit — but it turns an open-ended loss into a planned one.
Keep only trading money in the futures account
Your futures wallet is the only balance at risk. Keep savings on spot, in a bank or in your own wallet, and move across only what you are ready to trade with.
All four live on the same screen, so the quickest way to make sense of them is to look at a real order window. If you want to try the settings without money on the line, you can sign up on Bybit and switch to demo first — check during sign-up that futures are available where you live, since the rules differ by country.
Write down your worst case before you click. If you can say "the most this trade can cost me is 5 USDT" and point to the settings that make it true, you are trading. If you can't, you're just hoping the price is kind today.
Can I lose more money than I deposited?
In normal conditions the exchange closes your position before that, and your loss stops at the money backing that trade. In a very fast crash your position can be closed at a worse price than planned, and in rare cases the balance can go slightly below zero. How that is handled differs by exchange — that's on the owing the exchange page.
If one position is liquidated, do my other trades close too?
With isolated margin, no — each position stands on its own money. With cross margin they share one balance, so a big loss on one trade thins the cushion under all of them, and several can be closed one after another.
How long does it take to lose a deposit at 20x?
It takes whatever time the price needs to move about 5% against you. On a calm day that may be hours; during a news spike it can be a few minutes. That speed is the real cost of high leverage.
Is a stop loss enough to keep my account safe?
It handles most situations, as long as you also keep the position small. In a sharp gap your exit can be worse than the price you chose, so treat the stop as strong protection rather than a promise. Here's how to set one.
Does trading without leverage remove the risk of losing everything?
If you are long at 1x, the coin would have to fall all the way to zero before your money is gone. If you are short at 1x, a coin doubling in price does the same damage — and small coins do double. So 1x makes a single trade much slower to hurt you, not harmless, and you can still lose steadily through a run of bad trades and fees. Here's more on trading futures without leverage.