What are leverage and margin?

Margin is the money you put up to open a leveraged position. Leverage is how much larger your position is than that margin. With 10x leverage, a 1,000 deposit controls a 10,000 position.

Gains and losses both scale

Leverage multiplies your exposure, so a 1 percent move in the market becomes a 10 percent move on your margin at 10x. It cuts both ways.

The liquidation risk

If the price moves against you far enough to wipe out your margin, the position is liquidated, or force-closed. Higher leverage means a smaller adverse move triggers it.

How to read it here

High leverage across the market shows up as stretched funding and large liquidation events. Read those signals as a gauge of how fragile positioning is.