Hyperliquid offers two margin modes. isolated and cross. with up to 50x leverage on BTC and ETH and lower caps on alts. Isolated margin walls off risk to a single position; cross margin shares collateral across all positions for better capital efficiency. Funding rates accrue against your margin balance every hour.
Isolated vs cross margin: side-by-side
Dimension | Isolated margin | Cross margin |
Collateral scope | Locked to one position | Shared across all open positions |
Liquidation risk | Only the isolated position liquidates | One bad trade can drain the whole account |
Capital efficiency | Lower. capital sits idle | Higher. unrealized PnL offsets margin |
Best for | Sizing a single conviction trade | Hedged books and multi-leg strategies |
Adjustment | Add/remove margin per position | All free collateral auto-applies |
Initial and maintenance margin on Hyperliquid
Initial margin is the collateral required to open a position. Maintenance margin is the minimum equity required to keep it open. fall below and liquidation triggers. Both scale with leverage and asset volatility.
BTC, ETH: initial margin floor ~2% (50x max leverage), maintenance margin ~1%.
SOL, HYPE, mid-cap alts: initial ~5% (20x max), maintenance ~2.5%.
Long-tail alts: initial ~10–20% (5–10x max), maintenance ~5–10%.
Per-asset leverage caps and tiered margin schedules live in the Hyperliquid docs. check before sizing.
What does the leverage slider actually change?
The leverage slider sets the initial margin requirement for the next order. At 50x, you post 2% of notional as margin. At 5x, you post 20%. Higher leverage doesn't change your liquidation math directly. it changes how much room you have between entry and the liquidation price.
Worked example: 10x cross vs 10x isolated
You deposit 10,000 USDC. You open a 10x long on ETH at $4,000 with $5,000 notional exposure (1.25 ETH).
Isolated 10x: $500 locked as margin. If ETH drops ~9% to roughly $3,640, the position liquidates. Your other $9,500 is untouched.
Cross 10x: $500 initial margin posted, but your full $10,000 backstops the position. ETH would need to drop ~80% before account-wide liquidation. at the cost of risking the whole balance.
How do funding rates affect margin?
Hyperliquid charges funding every hour, debited from margin balance. On a $5,000 long with a +0.01%/hr funding rate, you pay $0.50/hr. about $12/day. Over a week of one-sided funding, that's $84 eating into the same collateral securing your liquidation price. On isolated positions, sustained funding can push you toward liquidation even with no price movement.
When should you use isolated vs cross?
Use isolated for high-conviction directional bets where you want a hard loss cap. Also for any position using max leverage. one bad fill shouldn't take the book.
Use cross for delta-neutral pairs, basis trades, or any book where PnL on one leg should subsidize margin on another.
Switch modes per position from the order ticket. Hyperliquid lets you mix isolated and cross in the same account.
Can you change leverage on an open position?
Yes. The slider adjusts going forward, and you can add or remove margin from an isolated position to move its liquidation price. Reducing leverage on a winning trade is the cheapest way to widen your liquidation buffer. no fees, just collateral reallocation.
Related reading
Methodology and sources
Margin tiers, leverage caps, and funding mechanics verified against Margining (hyperliquid.gitbook.io) as of May 2026. Worked examples use round numbers for clarity; actual liquidation prices depend on fees, funding accrued, and live maintenance margin tiers. HYPE and HLP refer to Hyperliquid's native token and liquidity provider vault respectively.
Worked example: liquidation math on a $10,000 BTC long at 20x
Hyperliquid's margin formula is documented at hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs. Walk through a concrete cross-margin position.
Open the position. Notional = $10,000. Leverage = 20x. Initial margin required = $10,000 / 20 = $500. That $500 comes out of your cross-margin USDC balance.
Compute maintenance margin. Maintenance margin is half of initial margin at max leverage, which is 2.5% of notional. On this $10,000 position, maintenance margin = $250.
Find the liquidation price. The position liquidates when account value (initial margin + unrealized PnL) drops below $250. That is a $250 loss on a $10,000 position, or a 2.5% adverse move. If you entered BTC at $100,000, liquidation triggers around $97,500.
Transfer margin cushion. You cannot withdraw down to zero cushion. The transfer limit is max(initial_margin_required, 0.1 × total_position_value). On this trade, that is max($500, $1,000) = $1,000. So $1,000 of your cross-margin USDC is effectively locked while the position is open.
Isolated margin behaves the same way, except the collateral pool is limited to what you assigned to that specific market. A liquidation in isolated mode caps your loss at the isolated collateral. Strict isolated locks that collateral in and refuses removal, which is the mode most HIP-3 markets default to.