> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://blog.dega.trade/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Leverage is 10x on BTC and ETH
- URL: https://blog.dega.trade/leverage-is-10x-on-btc-and-eth/
- Published: 2026-10-30T09:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-10T20:11:08.000Z
- Description: Lighter allows 50x. A Dega account stops at 10x, because a venue's limit is not a risk policy. Here is what leverage does to your room.
- Author: Dega editorial
- Tags: Product

Lighter will let you open BTC at 50x. On a Dega account, the most you can use is 10x. If you came from the venue, that can feel like a step down.

It is a choice, and the yellow paper gives the reason in one line: a venue's limit is not a risk policy.

## The setting

| Item                             | Setting                                |
| -------------------------------- | -------------------------------------- |
| Markets at launch                | BTC and ETH                            |
| Your leverage                    | Up to 10x                              |
| Lighter's maximum on BTC and ETH | 50x                                    |
| Dega's own hedge                 | Below 13.9x, capped at 10x in practice |

On a $10,000 simulated account, 10x means positions up to $100,000 of notional. Your orders never reach Lighter's order book and the balance is not your money, but the prices, funding and conditions are Lighter's live ones.

10x also sits inside the 30:1 retail leverage cap in the European Union, the United Kingdom and Australia. BTC and ETH are the launch markets because depth is what makes a simulated fill honest, and what makes Dega's hedge executable. No market is listed until its depth is measured against the largest position the rules allow.

## Leverage sets your room, not your loss

On Dega, leverage cannot change what you can lose. That is the $150 fee, fixed before your first trade. What leverage changes is how far the price can move before a limit stops you.

The maximum drawdown is 6% of the starting balance, or $600 on $10,000\. This is how far the price has to move against a full position to use all of it:

| Leverage | Position on $10,000 | Move to the 6% limit |
| -------- | ------------------- | -------------------- |
| 1x       | $10,000             | 6.00%                |
| 2x       | $20,000             | 3.00%                |
| 5x       | $50,000             | 1.20%                |
| 10x      | $100,000            | 0.60%                |

Inside a single day, the 3% daily loss limit stops you first, so the full 6% is only reachable across more than one day. Both limits count floating profit and loss and breach on a momentary touch, so the higher you go, the less room an ordinary move leaves you.

## Why not 50x

The paper measured what venue leverage does to a small stake. With $150 of your own money, the most you can control on Lighter is $7,500, at 50x. Spend the same $150 on an assessment and you trade $10,000 at 1x.

| On $150                          | 50x on the venue   | Assessment at 1x        |
| -------------------------------- | ------------------ | ----------------------- |
| Position                         | $7,500             | $10,000                 |
| Move before it ends              | 0.80%, liquidation | 3.00%, daily loss limit |
| BTC sessions that moved that far | 93.1%              | 32.3%                   |

The sessions are Coinbase Exchange BTC-USD daily candles, 350 of them to 16 September 2026, measured from the open to the worst point, long or short. The 6% drawdown level was reached in 5.1% of them. On ordinary volatility, the 50x position ends in nine sessions out of ten. The assessment ends in roughly one in three, and it ends the account, not your savings. More in [Same $150\. Different ending.](https://blog.dega.trade/same-150-different-ending/)

## Dega's own leverage is capped too

Dega hedges its overall payout obligation on funded accounts with its own positions on Lighter. Those positions are Dega's own, never yours.

The hedge runs under one binding rule: on a losing trade, your simulated account must reach its drawdown limit before Dega's real position could be liquidated. Lighter's maintenance margin on BTC and ETH is 1.2%. The hardest case is a trader at 1x, who can absorb the full 6% before the account stops them. Covering that case means Dega's hedge must run below 13.9x, and in practice it is capped at 10x to leave a buffer.

More leverage on your side makes the rule easier to hold, not harder, because a bigger position breaches sooner in price terms. When the ordering holds, Dega's loss on every funded account is bounded before the account opens. That is what lets Dega drop the minimum-trading-day rule.

The leverage is yours to choose, up to 10x. What it can cost you stays fixed at $150.

---

*Nothing has launched. Every figure in this post is a design figure from the Dega yellow paper, version 2.0, dated 22 September 2026\. Dega is not an exchange, broker, custodian or investment manager. Accounts are simulated: orders do not reach Lighter's order book, and the account balance is not your money. Dega's hedge positions are Dega's own, never yours. Payouts are subject to a lifetime limit of 20% of the publicly visible reserve and a per-user cap of $800 a day.*