Margin and Leverage
This page explains initial margin, maintenance margin, and how your leverage choice affects your liquidation distance on Hyperliquid Perpetuals.
1. Initial margin
Initial margin is the collateral you must post to open a position.
Formula (simplified):
initial margin ≈ position notional / leverage
- A $10,000 notional position at 10x leverage requires roughly $1,000 in initial margin.
- The same $10,000 position at 2x leverage requires roughly $5,000.
Higher leverage means lower initial margin for the same notional, but also a tighter liquidation distance (see section 4).
2. Maintenance margin
Maintenance margin is the minimum collateral your position must keep to stay open. If equity (collateral + unrealized PnL) drops below this floor, the position is liquidated — closed forcibly by the exchange at a penalty price.
- The maintenance margin requirement is lower than the initial margin requirement — leaving a buffer between "opening allowed" and "liquidation triggered."
- The exact maintenance margin rate depends on the asset and the leverage tier set when you opened.
See Liquidations for the full mechanic.
3. Leverage
Hyperliquid sets the maximum leverage separately for each market, and the cap is lower for smaller markets than for majors. Larger positions can also have a lower maximum, so the selectable maximum can drop as your order size grows. The leverage editor shows the maximum available for the market and size you're trading — use that rather than assuming a fixed number.
Typical user choices:
| Leverage | Profile |
|---|---|
| 1x | Spot-like, no funding-rate amplification beyond the position notional |
| 5x | Conservative perp trader |
| 10x | Typical active trader |
| 25x | Aggressive, short-horizon |
| At the market's cap | Minimal liquidation buffer |
You set leverage per market in the order panel's settings (the gear icon) before opening a position. The panel's Order value is the position's notional value (price × size), not the margin it uses.
4. Cross vs isolated margin
Hyperliquid offers two margin modes per position:
| Mode | What collateral backs the position | Effect on liquidation |
|---|---|---|
| Cross | The entire perp account balance backs every position | Other open positions' equity can absorb adverse moves; one bad trade can affect the whole account |
| Isolated | A fixed amount of collateral assigned to the position | Loss is capped to that allocated collateral; other positions are insulated |
You pick Margin mode (Cross or Isolated) in the order panel's settings. Stock and other non-crypto markets on Hyperliquid are isolated-only.
5. Changing leverage
You set leverage per market in the order panel's settings, and the change applies to that market in your Hyperliquid account. If the change can't be applied, the panel says so and your order uses the account's current leverage.
Hyperliquid can reject a leverage change on a market where you hold an open position. If that happens, reduce or close the position first.
6. Stock Trading margin
Stock Trading is routed to your real brokerage account. Margin trading on stocks (borrowing against equity to amplify positions) is a feature of the underlying broker, not Alphio.
- If your broker offers margin and you've enabled it, your buying power reflects that — Alphio shows the broker's reported buying power on the account balance card.
- If your broker is cash-only or you have not enabled margin, you can only place orders within your settled cash balance.
This page is available as plain Markdown at https://alphio.ai/docs/reference/margin-and-leverage.md. An index of every page, with a one-line summary each, is at https://alphio.ai/docs/llms.txt.