How much leverage is reasonable for perpetual contracts?
Last night, my friend Zhou complained to me over drinks:
"Bro, I blew up again, this time with 30x leverage; as soon as the market retraced, it was all gone."
I asked him, "How much leverage do you usually use?"
He said, "30x, 50x, sometimes in a rush I go up to 100x."
I laughed when I heard that. In fact, when trading contracts, whether it’s 1x or 100x, as long as you’ve used leverage, you’ve already placed yourself in the risk zone. The difference is only how much you can multiply your gains when you win, and how quickly you can get wiped out when you lose.
I still remember the first time I traded perpetual contracts; I also used low leverage. For Bitcoin, one times leverage required over 470 U, and when the market wasn’t moving much, you couldn’t earn much at all, and you still had to pay transaction fees. Later, I figured it out—since I chose to use leverage, I should maximize its use, but also combine it with reasonable margin and risk control.
I told Zhou, "The key isn’t the leverage multiplier, but whether you have enough margin to withstand market fluctuations."
Many people go into trades with thin capital and mismatched positions; with too little margin, even a slight fluctuation can wipe them out, and when the market finally makes a move, they’re left outside watching with empty pockets.
The truly stable traders all have a few habits:
Sufficient margin—better safe than sorry, preventing the market from easily shaking you out.
Isolated position mode—risk is controllable, you don’t have to bet the whole account on one trade.
Timely stop-loss—holding onto a losing position is a major taboo in contract trading; cutting losses is the only way to protect your principal.
Setting goals—for example, if the principal is 5000 U, aim to earn only 50-100 U daily, and stop trading as soon as you hit the target.
Consider this: even if you only hit your target 20 days in a month, that’s still a net gain of 1000-2000 U, which is much safer than blindly going all-in.
After listening, Zhou was silent for a long time and then said quietly, "If I had known this earlier, I could have saved at least three times the amount I lost last year."
In the cryptocurrency world of perpetual contracts, there is no absolute 'reasonable multiplier'; only strategies that suit your capital and personality. A high multiplier is fine, but you must have enough margin + a stop-loss mechanism. Otherwise, leverage doesn’t amplify your gains; it amplifies your funeral.
How much leverage do you usually use for contracts?
Do you blow up more often or earn more?
