Leverage trading in the crypto world is like walking a tightrope—bet on the right direction and it becomes a money-making machine; bet wrong and you could be wiped out overnight.

Recently, there have been a few extreme operations in the market. An ETH short position with 100x leverage yielded a 452% profit, and ZEC was even more outrageous, with 50x leverage soaring to 1702% profit. To put it into perspective, a margin of just a few hundred dollars was enough to generate nearly $8,000 in unrealized gains. This kind of play sounds like divine prediction, but in reality, it’s walking on a knife’s edge.

Historically, some traders have indeed caught the right rhythm. During last year’s BTC crash, a trader with a 50x short position turned 3 days into a 12-fold increase. But the flip side is equally shocking—100x chasing the rally only lasted 5 minutes before liquidation, instantly wiping out half a year’s profits.

What’s even more heartbreaking is that the margin ratio for these two highly profitable trades was already at 4.7%. What does that mean? It means that a slight 5-point rebound in price could instantly wipe out unrealized gains or even turn into a loss. This is no longer trading; it’s holding a stick of dynamite while counting money.

The deadly flaw of high leverage is that—time and volatility are not your friends. You can predict the right direction, but if you get liquidated before the trend is confirmed, everything is pointless. Therefore, successful traders are often not those pursuing the highest return multiples, but those who, within their risk tolerance, lock in profits through phased position building, dynamic take profits, and timely stop-losses. Although this approach may reduce single-trade returns from 1702% to a few hundred percentage points, it greatly extends the survival cycle.