Leverage and margin

Each perpetual market has its own leverage and margin mode, kept by the exchange for your account. Until you change them, a market uses its defaults. Spot has no leverage or margin: a spot order spends what you hold.

One exception to isolation: an isolated position pays its fees from its own margin, and if that runs short, the exchange moves what is needed from your cross balance to keep the position healthy.

You can change a market’s mode only while it has no position and no open orders there. A few markets trade in isolated margin only, and the leverage dialog says so. Using other assets as margin, which needs Lighter’s Unified trading mode, stays in Lighter’s app.

Initial margin is what a position needs when you open it: its size × the mark price × the initial margin fraction. Leverage is one over that fraction, so 10× needs 10% and 50× needs 2%. A market’s maximum leverage sets the smallest fraction allowed; your own setting can only ask for a larger one.

Maintenance margin is a smaller share of the position’s value. Your account value, your collateral plus your unrealized PnL at the mark price, must stay above it. Below it, the exchange starts to liquidate.

A 1 ETH long at a mark price of $3,000, at 10×:

Every market’s figures are on the chart’s Details tab: Max leverage, Initial margin at max and Maintenance margin. They can change, so check there before you trade.

Available to trade, in the ticket and the Account panel, is what your cross balance can still open: your cross account value less the initial margin your cross positions already use. In an isolated market, the ticket counts only the USDC that can move into the new position.

The Account panel also shows Margin in use as a percent. Above 100%, new orders are blocked. The panel then offers three ways back: deposit USDC, close the cross position holding the most margin, or set your cross markets to their maximum leverage.

In the ticket, the margin mode button (Cross or Isolated) and the leverage button, such as 10×, both open it. Its title names the market: ETH margin and leverage.

• Cross or Isolated. Locked while the market has a position or open orders, or when it trades isolated only. The dialog says which.
• Leverage. − and + move it by 1×. The slider runs evenly from 1× to the market’s maximum, and its labels set a value in one tap.
• The figures. Buying power at your new leverage (Available to trade × leverage), the initial margin as a share of value, the margin your open position would hold, and its liquidation price. With no position, the liquidation line reads Set per order.
• Set 10×. Sends the change. With a position open, it applies once the exchange has checked the margin; if the margin doesn’t fit, you see Leverage not changed with the reason.

For an isolated position, the dialog adds Isolated margin, with Add margin and Remove margin. You can remove the margin beyond what the position locked when you opened it, less any unrealized loss.

In cross, Max leverage on all cross markets sets every cross market where you hold a position or orders to its maximum, one market a second. Keep the window open until it finishes.

In isolated, the leverage you open at sets how much margin the position holds. Higher leverage means less margin behind it, so its liquidation price sits closer to your entry. Liquidation works through both cases with the same ETH position.

Fees are figured on the full value of what you trade, whatever your leverage. See The fee.