Crypto leverage calculator
See what leverage does to a trade: position size, profit or loss after fees, return on your margin, and the price at which you'd be liquidated.
With 10x leverage, a 10% move against you can erase your whole margin, and in fast markets positions are often liquidated before you can react. On October 10, 2025, about $19 billion of leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in a single day. Many offshore exchanges offering high leverage don't accept US customers, and if an exchange fails, customers may get little or nothing back. Read crypto futures explained first.
How it's calculated
- Position value = margin × leverage; quantity = position value ÷ entry price
- Price profit = quantity × (exit − entry) for a long, or × (entry − exit) for a short
- Fees = fee rate × (entry value + exit value)
- Net profit or loss = price profit − fees; return on margin (ROE) = net ÷ margin
Liquidation price
Isolated margin, linear (USDT- or USD-margined) contracts. With leverage L, your margin is 1/L of the position's value. You're liquidated when losses eat the margin down to the maintenance margin.
- Long: liquidation price = entry × (1 − 1/L) ÷ (1 − MMR − liquidation fee)
- Short: liquidation price = entry × (1 + 1/L) ÷ (1 + MMR + liquidation fee)
- Without maintenance margin (the simplest version, where you lose exactly your margin): long = entry × (1 − 1/L); short = entry × (1 + 1/L).
MMR is the maintenance margin rate, set by the exchange by position size (often 0.4%–1% for bitcoin on smaller positions). This is the formula KuCoin publishes; Binance's is similar. Other exchanges calculate the maintenance margin on the entry value instead (long: entry × (1 − 1/L + MMR)), use the mark price rather than the last trade, include funding payments, or add tiers for large positions. Your exchange's liquidation price is the one that counts.
Worked example
$1,000 margin at 10x opens a $10,000 long on bitcoin at $100,000 (0.1 BTC). If the price rises to $105,000, the price profit is 0.1 × $5,000 = $500. Fees at 0.05% each way are $5.00 + $5.25 = $10.25, so the net is $489.75, a 49% return on margin, from a 5% price move. The same 5% move down loses $509.75, 51% of the margin. With a 0.5% maintenance margin, liquidation comes at $100,000 × 0.9 ÷ 0.995 = $90,452.26, just 9.5% below entry.
Limitations
- Exchanges differ in how they calculate liquidation, fees and margin; use this to understand the mechanics, then check your exchange's own figures.
- Funding payments on perpetual futures can add up over days.
- In a fast crash, the price can jump past your liquidation or stop price.
Related: liquidation price calculator and position size calculator.
Sources
- How to calculate futures liquidation price (KuCoin)
- Crypto market sees $19.15B liquidation event on October 10, 2025 (KuCoin News)
- Leveraged investing strategies: know the risks (SEC investor bulletin)
- Exercise caution with crypto asset securities (SEC investor alert)
Questions
What does 10x leverage mean?
You control a position ten times bigger than your margin. Every 1% price move changes your margin by about 10%, in either direction.
How much can I lose with leverage?
On isolated margin, typically the margin you put into the position, and it can happen quickly. On cross margin, losses can draw on the rest of your account.
What is ROE?
Return on equity: your profit or loss as a percentage of the margin you put in. With leverage it's roughly the price change times the leverage, minus fees.
Every result is worked out in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere. Results are estimates for learning and planning, not financial or tax advice. Last reviewed November 4, 2026.