Risk Management
Leverage is borrowed exposure: with 5x leverage, $100 of your own margin controls a $500 position, so a 1% move in the market becomes a 5% move in your equity, in both directions.
Leverage does not change whether a trade is right; it changes how much a small move costs or earns before the trade has a chance to play out. At 20x, a 5% adverse move wipes the margin behind the position, and on most crypto perpetual venues the exchange will liquidate you before that point. Signal channels often post "20x" or "50x" as a suggestion; following that number without your own cap is the most common way a good signal history turns into a blown account. Leverage also multiplies fees and funding, which are charged on the full position size, not on your margin.
On AlgoVesta you set a leverage value per bot in the wizard, and that value is applied on the exchange before each order is placed; the leverage in the signal is read but never used above your setting. Position size is expressed as margin per trade (for example $100), so the notional exposure is always margin times your leverage and stays predictable. Isolated margin can be selected so the loss on one position is limited to its own margin. In paper mode the default leverage is 5x with a hard cap of 10x, so a strategy is tested at conservative settings before real money is involved. The current leverage, margin and liquidation price of every open position are shown in the dashboard exactly as the exchange reports them. See crypto automation for the wizard settings and liquidation price for the mechanics.
A trader sets 5x leverage and $100 margin per signal. A channel posts "BTCUSDT LONG 60,000, SL 59,400, 20x". AlgoVesta opens a $500 notional position (about 0.0083 BTC) at 5x, not 20x. The 1% distance to the stop is a 5% loss on the $100 margin, or about $5. At the channel's 20x the same trade would have risked $20 of $100 and sat much closer to liquidation.