Set leverage from the drawdown you can survive
Most blow-ups come from picking leverage first and hoping price behaves. Flip it: decide the worst move you must survive, then let that dictate the maximum leverage. This tool does that math with a buffer built in. See where liquidation actually lands on the liquidation calculator.
Working leverage backwards from pain tolerance
The standard question is "how much can I make at 20x?" The survivable question is inverted: "given the drawdown I can tolerate, what leverage is even permissible?" If you can accept a 25% account drawdown and your strategy historically sees adverse excursions of 8% on the underlying, your ceiling is roughly 3x — not 20.
The formula: max leverage ≈ tolerable account drawdown ÷ worst expected adverse move. The inputs need honesty — "worst expected" means the bad week that happens quarterly, not the average wiggle. Most coins deliver 15–25% adverse moves at least once a year; leverage above 3–4x on a held position means one of those events exceeds a 60% account hit.
This is why professional leverage looks boringly low. The 50x offered by the exchange is a marketing number priced for liquidation fees; the leverage that survives a full year of normal crypto weather, for most strategies, has a single digit — often a low one.