Leverage is the defining feature of perpetual futures, and margin is what makes it possible. Understanding both is not optional: they decide how much you can win, how much you can lose, and how close you sit to liquidation. This guide covers the mechanics as they work on Hyperbeat Trade.
What margin actually is
Margin is the collateral you set aside to back a position. Think of it as a security deposit. The exchange holds it to make sure that if the trade goes against you, there is money to cover the loss.
The formula is simple. The margin required to open a position is the position's value divided by your leverage:
- A 1,000 USDC position at 10x leverage requires 100 USDC of margin.
- The same position at 2x leverage requires 500 USDC.
The order form shows Margin Required before you place every trade, so you never need to compute this yourself.
Choosing your leverage
Above the order form you will find a leverage button showing your current setting, for example 10x. Click it to open the leverage dialog, where a slider and input let you pick anything from 1x up to that market's maximum. Maximum leverage varies by market and is shown as a badge in the market selector; major markets allow higher leverage than smaller, more volatile ones.
Your leverage choice is saved per market, so your BTC setting does not affect your ETH setting.
One honest warning, straight from the dialog itself: setting a higher leverage increases the risk of liquidation. Higher leverage does not just increase potential profit, it moves your liquidation price closer to your entry.
Cross vs isolated margin
Next to the leverage button is the margin mode button, showing Cross or Isolated. This choice controls what collateral backs your position, and it matters enormously.
### Cross margin
In cross mode, all your positions share your entire account balance as collateral. Benefits:
- Maximum capital efficiency. Unrealized gains on one position can support margin on another.
- More room before liquidation, because your whole balance absorbs losses.
The cost: a single bad position can eat into the collateral backing everything else. In the worst case, one runaway loss can take down your whole account.
### Isolated margin
In isolated mode, you assign a fixed amount of margin to the position. That is all it can lose. If the position is liquidated, your other funds and positions are untouched.
You can add or remove margin on an isolated position after opening it, using the pencil icon in the Margin column of the Positions tab. Adding margin pushes your liquidation price further away. A few markets use a strict isolated mode that lets you add margin but not remove it; there, the margin only comes back as you close the position.
The cost of isolation: less staying power. The position can only draw on its own margin, so it liquidates sooner than the same position would in cross mode.
### Which should a beginner use?
There is no universally correct answer, but a useful default: use isolated margin while learning, sized so that losing the entire margin on one trade is acceptable. It turns every position into a defined-risk bet. Cross margin is powerful for experienced traders running multiple positions, and dangerous when you have not yet felt what fast markets do to an account.
Note that some markets only support isolated margin, including the HIP-3 markets that track stocks, commodities, and similar assets. The interface locks the mode to Isolated for those. The box below explains the full set of modes Hyperliquid uses beneath the surface.
Initial margin vs maintenance margin
Two thresholds govern every position:
- Initial margin is what you need to open the position: position value divided by leverage.
- Maintenance margin is the minimum collateral required to keep it open. On Hyperliquid, maintenance margin is half of the initial margin at maximum leverage. If your equity backing a position falls below maintenance margin, liquidation begins.
You do not need to memorize the formulas. The key intuition: there is a buffer between "cannot open new positions" and "getting liquidated," and the maintenance threshold is the one that really hurts. Our liquidation guide walks through it with numbers.
Under the hood: Hyperliquid margining
Hyperbeat Trade runs on Hyperliquid, so the margin rules are Hyperliquid's. The essentials in one place:
- Initial margin equals position value divided by leverage. Maintenance margin is half the initial margin at the market's maximum leverage, which works out to roughly 1.25 percent of position value on a 40x market and about 16.7 percent on a 3x market.
- Liquidation begins when the equity backing a position falls below its maintenance margin, measured against the mark price, not the last trade.
- Hyperliquid has four margin modes: cross, isolated, strict isolated (margin cannot be removed), and no-cross (isolated only, used by HIP-3 markets). You choose between Cross and Isolated; the stricter variants apply automatically where a market requires them.
- When you remove margin from an isolated position, Hyperliquid keeps a cushion: your remaining margin must stay above the larger of the initial margin requirement and 10 percent of the position value. That is why the MAX removable amount stops short of everything.
Your account health dashboard
Because Hyperbeat uses a unified account with one balance across spot and perps, the account card shows metrics for your account as a whole:
- Total Equity: the full value of your trading account including unrealized profit and loss.
- Unrealized P&L: how your open positions are doing right now.
- Perps Maintenance Margin: the total maintenance requirement of all your perp positions.
- Unified Account Ratio: perps maintenance margin divided by total equity. The closer this gets to 100 percent, the closer your cross positions are to liquidation. Keep it low.
- Unified Account Leverage: your total perps position value divided by total equity. This is your real, account-wide leverage, which can differ from the per-market setting.
Checking these two or three numbers once in a while is the simplest habit that separates careful traders from liquidated ones.
Keep learning
- Understanding liquidation and how to avoid it
- Order types on Hyperbeat Trade
- Risk management basics for new traders
Nothing in this article is financial advice.
