What it multiplies
A margin of $1,000 at 10x holds $10,000 of notional. A move of 1% in the price is then $100, which is 10% of the margin. That is all leverage is: the same market move measured against a smaller amount of your own money.
It multiplies the loss with the same exactness, and it is worth being precise about what it does not change. A notional of $10,000 behaves identically whether it is held with $1,000 or with $10,000: the market does not know. What changes is how much of your money stands behind it, and therefore how soon the venue takes the position away.
On Hyperliquid leverage is an integer between 1 and the market's maximum, chosen when the position is opened.
The initial margin it sets
The margin required to open a position is position_size * mark_price / leverage. Picking a leverage is really picking that figure: at 10x you post a tenth of the notional, at 3x a third of it.
Afterwards the two modes differ. On a cross position the initial margin is used by the position and cannot be withdrawn, while unrealized profit becomes margin for new positions. On an isolated position margin can be added or removed later, unless the market is strict isolated. Leverage itself is only checked when a position is opened: the documentation says the leverage of an existing position can be increased without closing it, and that the trader is then responsible for watching it.
The maximum, market by market
It varies by asset. The documentation gives a range from 3x to 40x, and ties the maintenance margin to it: half the initial margin at the maximum, so 1.25% of the notional on a 40x market and 16.7% on a 3x one. The high maximum of a large market and the low one of a small market are two statements about the same thing, the venue's confidence in that market's liquidity.
The spread is wider than most people expect. On this site's snapshot of 4 October 2026, BTC's maximum was 40x, while of the 178 markets of the main dex 88 stopped at 3x and 56 at 5x. Each market page here carries its own figure. On some assets the maximum also falls as the position grows, by margin tier:
| Market | Notional position value, USDC | Maximum leverage |
|---|---|---|
BTC | 0 to 150M | 40x |
BTC | > 150M | 20x |
ETH | 0 to 100M | 25x |
ETH | > 100M | 15x |
SOL | 0 to 70M | 20x |
SOL | > 70M | 10x |
Why a lower leverage moves the liquidation price away
The arithmetic is the same in both modes: the room before liquidation is the margin available divided by the size of the position. The formula liq_price = price - side * margin_available / position_size / (1 - l * side) shows it directly, since doubling the margin available doubles the distance.
On an isolated position, lowering the leverage is how you raise that margin. The documentation says the liquidation price depends on the leverage set for isolated positions, because the amount of isolated margin allocated depends on the initial margin set.
On a cross position it works the other way round, and this surprises people. The documentation says the actual liquidation price is independent of the leverage set for cross margin positions, and that a cross position at lower leverage simply uses more collateral. There, what moves the liquidation price is how much collateral stands in the account, not the number you chose.
What leverage does not do
- It does not change the funding you pay. The payment is computed on the position size times the spot oracle price, which is the notional, not the margin.
- It does not change the fees. They too are a share of the notional, on each side of the trade.
- It does not change the price at which the idea is right. It changes only whether you are still in the position when that price arrives.
At 40x the maintenance margin is 1.25% of the notional, so a move of a few percent against a position held at the maximum is enough to liquidate it, and in a backstop liquidation the maintenance margin is not returned. Everything put behind a position can be lost, and a higher leverage only makes it quicker.
The charter's figure: 3x
The daily pilot uses a leverage of 3 on every step of its ladder. The charter's bounds for that field are 1 to 5, and the same figure applies to each step, so the whole position is held at one leverage rather than at an average of several.
It is not a comfort setting. The base stake is not a field anyone types: the code computes it from the leverage, the room before liquidation and the sum of the ladder, which with the defaults gives 2.78% of the equity. The three cannot be chosen independently, so changing the leverage changes the size of every step with it.