Margin and Leverage

Hyperliquid Perpetuals offer up to 50x leverage. This page explains initial margin, maintenance margin, and how leverage choice affects your liquidation distance.

---

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 supports leverage from 1x up to a per-asset maximum. 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
50x	Maximum on supported majors — minimal liquidation buffer

You set leverage per symbol via setDexLeverage — Alphio calls this when you change the slider in the Trade Modal before opening a position.

warning

Exact per-asset maximum leverage (BTC, ETH, SOL, mid-caps, long-tail) is set by Hyperliquid and can change. The Trade Modal pulls the live cap from the rail — treat the in-app slider as authoritative.

---

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

Alphio's Hyperliquid integration passes is_cross: boolean through to the rail. The Trade Modal lets you pick cross or isolated when opening a new position.

warning

The default mode (cross or isolated) when you first open a position via Alphio, and whether the default is per-user configurable, is being finalized. Confirm the toggle state in the Trade Modal before submitting.

---

5. Adjusting leverage on an open position

Hyperliquid lets you change leverage on an open position without closing it — this changes the maintenance margin requirement and the liquidation price, but does not realize PnL or move funds.

In Alphio:

• Open the position in the perp positions panel.
• Adjust the leverage slider for that symbol.
• Confirm. The new leverage takes effect immediately.

warning

Whether leverage adjustment is exposed in every Alphio surface (mobile vs PC, Trade Modal vs positions panel) is being finalized. If you don't see the control, fall back to closing and reopening at the new leverage.

---

6. Stock Trading margin

Stock Trading is routed through SnapTrade 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 broker 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.

warning

Alphio does not gate or surface margin-account-specific features (day-trade calls, regulation T calls, portfolio margin). Manage margin status through your broker directly. Confirm with the product team whether Alphio plans to expose any broker-margin metadata in a future release.