Leverage is trading with borrowed exposure. At 10x, each dollar of collateral controls ten dollars of position. Gains and losses both multiply by the same factor, and so does the speed at which you reach your liquidation price.
01The liquidation distance table
Approximate adverse move that liquidates a position, ignoring fees, at common leverage levels with a 0.5% maintenance requirement: 2x needs about 49%, 5x about 19.5%, 10x about 9.5%, 25x about 3.5%, 50x about 1.5%, 100x about 0.5%.
BTC regularly moves 2% in an hour and 5% in a day. Altcoins regularly move 10% in a day. Read against that table, the survival horizon of high leverage is measured in minutes to hours, which matches what liquidation feeds show: the largest single wipes are almost always maximum-leverage positions.
02Why traders still use it
Leverage frees capital for hedging and lets market makers run many positions at once. For directional traders it is a speed tool, converting a small move into a meaningful gain or a total loss. The liquidation data on this site is, in effect, a ledger of leverage decisions that went wrong, and its largest entries are a standing argument for sizing.