Ever wish you could trade big without spending a huge pile of cash? That's what leverage is for! With leverage, you can control bigger trades with a smaller amount of your own money. It's like borrowing extra money from your broker to boost your trading power.
🚀 Ready to see why leverage rocks? Let’s dive in!
How leverage works
Let's say you want to trade on Bitcoin. Without leverage, you'd need $100,000 to buy 1 BTC. But with 100x leverage, you only need $1,000 (1/100th of the full price).
Now, if Bitcoin rises to $105,000, that's a $5,000 profit. The best part? That $5,000 is yours even though you only put in $1,000! Without leverage, you'd need the full $100,000 to make the same profit.
⚠️ Be careful: Leverage works both ways. If the market goes against you, your losses also increase at the same scale.
Margin — Your entry ticket
To trade with leverage, you need to put down a small portion of your own money as margin — think of it as your security deposit. The broker holds this to cover any potential losses.
The higher the leverage, the smaller the margin needed. So, with 100x leverage, you'd need less margin than with 50x leverage.
Leverage on Doto: Floating power
Here’s where it gets smart. On Doto, leverage is floating — it adapts to your position size automatically and applies to more than 200 trading instruments.
Your total trade amount in an instrument is divided into steps, and each step has its own leverage. Smaller positions get the highest leverage. As your position grows, only the additional amount moves to the next step with lower leverage — not your entire position.
Here's the max leverage per market:
Forex: up to 1000x
Gold: up to 1000x
Crypto: up to 500x (Bitcoin)
Indices: up to 500x
Oil: up to 400x
Silver: up to 200x
Stocks & ETFs: up to 50x
The best part? For most everyday trade sizes, you're in the highest-leverage step — meaning less of your money is reserved as margin.
Want to tweak your leverage?
Just open the instrument in the app and check the Instrument Overview. You'll see the full list of margin steps, the leverage at each step, your current leverage, and your trade amount — all updating in real time.
💡 Curious how the math works? Check out our Floating leverage article for a full breakdown with examples.
Trade size options: Margin vs. lots
When deciding on your trade size, you've got two options: margin or lots.
💵 Margin is like saying, "I've got this amount of money — how much can I trade with it?"
⚖️ Lots are more like, "I want to trade this quantity — how much will it cost me?"
The bigger the margin or lot size, the bigger the impact of price movements on your trade result. That means higher potential gains, but also higher risks. So choose wisely!
What is a lot?
A lot is just a standard unit for measuring how much you're trading. Here's how it breaks down:
Bitcoin, Ethereum: 1 lot = 1 coin
Gold: 1 lot = 100 ounces
EURUSD: 1 lot = 100,000 currency units
NVIDIA: 1 lot = 100 shares
S&P 500: 1 lot = 10 units
If you're just starting out, don't worry — Doto lets you trade on as little as 0.1 lot to test the waters.
💡 A quick tip: If lots feel confusing, you can always stick with margin to keep things simple.
Tips for choosing your trade size
📝 Choose your risk level: Decide on how much of your funds you're comfortable with risking. A common approach is around 5% of your account balance per trade. For example, if you deposit $1,000, you'd risk approximately $50 per trade — a balanced way to manage potential losses while staying active in the market.
📝 Always use a stop loss: This tool automatically closes your trade if the market moves against you, limiting your losses (don't worry, we'll show you how soon!)
📝 Keep an eye on your step: As your position in an instrument grows, your leverage may move to the next step and your margin requirement will adjust. You can always check where you stand in the Instrument Overview.
Quick quiz: Test your knowledge
If you trade with 500x leverage, your margin (reserved funds) will be:
Higher than with 100x leverage
The same as with 100x leverage
Smaller than with 100x leverage
Higher than with no leverage
Summing up
Congrats, you made it through! Now you know:
What leverage is and how it works
How floating leverage adapts to your position size
The role of margin and lots
How to choose your trade size
Next, we'll dive into making smart trading decisions. Doto has plenty of tools to help you trade like a pro, and we'll cover them in the next lesson.
Stay tuned!
Correct answer is 3.
🧠Higher leverage = Less margin needed.
With 500x, you put down just $2 for a $1,000 trade vs. $10 with 100x leverage. Bigger power, smaller deposit — just watch out for the risks!