Woken up in the middle of the night by a friend's frantic message, his voice literally shaking:

"I went all-in with $10,000 on over 10x leverage, and I got liquidated after just a 3% drop. What the hell is this?"

I checked his trading records—he went all-in with $9,500, panicked and cut losses at the slightest dip, then FOMOed back in when it bounced, repeating this over and over, not even bothering to set a stop-loss.

A lot of people get this wrong. Going all-in doesn’t mean you have to blindly hold on; using it the wrong way is even worse than using isolated margin—the losses are even more brutal.
What really kills you isn’t the leverage, it’s being overexposed. He put 95% of his money in one trade, so even a small market move wiped out his account.

I’ve been using cross margin for over half a year, and not only have I never been liquidated, I’ve doubled my account. All thanks to these three iron rules:

**Rule 1: Never risk more than 20% of your total capital in a single trade**
Got $10,000 in your account? Then only use up to $2,000 per trade.
Even if your stop-loss is hit at 10%, that’s just a $200 loss. Your principal is still there, and you can always bounce back.

**Rule 2: Keep losses per trade within 3% of total capital**
Open a $2,000 position with 20x leverage, set your stop-loss at 1.5%—even if it triggers, you lose just $300, which is exactly 3% of your total funds. Even after a few wrong calls in a row, your account can still survive.

**Rule 3: Don’t open positions in choppy markets, and never add to a winning trade**
Only trade trend breakouts. No matter how tempting the sideways action looks, don’t pull the trigger.
After opening a trade, keep your hands off—absolutely no adding to your position. Control yourself, or your emotions will get out of control.

The real point of cross margin is to give yourself a buffer, not to go all-in and gamble with your life.
I had a friend who used to blow up his account every month. He stuck to these three rules for three months, growing from $5,000 to $8,000. He told me, "I used to think going all-in was gambling with my life. Now I get it—cross margin is about staying alive steadily."

In this market, it’s not about who makes money the fastest—it’s about who survives the longest.
Bet less on direction, control your position sizes more. Slow is actually fast.