Woken up by a message in the middle of the night, my friend’s voice trembling with tears: “Bro, I went all-in with 10x leverage on $10,000, and I got liquidated after just a 3% drop. What’s going on?”

I pulled up his trading history—damn. He went all-in with $9,500, panicked and cut losses after a small drop, then FOMO’d back in when the price rebounded, never even bothering to set a stop-loss the whole time.

Honestly, a lot of people mistakenly think cross margin mode can withstand bigger swings. Wrong. If you use it incorrectly, cross margin is even deadlier than isolated margin.

The real killer isn’t leverage—it’s staking way too much of your balance. Like him, going in with 95% of his funds, even a slight market shake is game over.

I’ve been trading with cross margin for over half a year, never got liquidated, and actually doubled my capital. Here are my three iron rules:

**Rule 1: Never risk more than 20% of your total balance on a single trade**
Got $10,000 in your account? The most you should open per trade is $2,000. Even if you stop out at a 10% loss, you’re only down $200—not a big deal.

**Rule 2: Keep single-trade losses under 3% of your total capital**
For example, if you open a $2,000 position with 20x leverage and set your stop-loss at 1.5%, your real loss is just 3% of your total funds. Even if you get it wrong a few times in a row, you’ll still have a chance to bounce back.

**Rule 3: Avoid choppy markets, and never add to a winning position**
I only trade clear breakout trends and never enter during sideways markets, no matter how tempting. Once a position is open, I never add to it. If you can control your trades, you can control your emotions.

The essence of cross margin is leaving enough buffer—not gambling with your life.

A follower of mine used to get liquidated every month. After strictly following these three rules for three months, he grew $5,000 to $8,000. He told me, “I used to think cross margin was just gambling. Now I get it—cross margin is about surviving more steadily.”

This market has never been about who makes money the fastest, but who survives the longest. Forget betting on direction—spend more effort managing your position size.

Slow is sometimes the fastest way forward.