# Every leverage cap has a size where it stops

The Leverage Ladder desk · Updated: 24 September 2026 · Venue terms read 18 September 2026 · Order books read on a ten-minute cycle that ran the length of 22 September 2026

## Highest documented BTC leverage, venue by venue

The highest BTC leverage on an order book here is 200x, and two venues offer it: EVEDEX holds 200x to
$50,000 of notional and 100x to $200,000, Aster only to 400 USDT. edgeX and ApeX Omni stop at 100x,
Extended at 50x, Hyperliquid at 40x. Aster's separate Shield Mode quotes 1001x but caps profit per
position.

The first column is the number a venue puts on its front page; the last is the ladder underneath it.
Four more venues print a multiple against a flat margin rate and no size beside it, so they take a
place on no table here: a cap with no stated size behind it is a headline, and a ladder is made of
rungs.

The tread is the number each venue prints; the drop to the next is what moving one place to the right
costs in headline terms. It is also the least useful comparison on this page, which is why the size each
cap holds to sits in the table directly below it.

| Venue | Highest BTC leverage | Where that cap still holds |
|---|---|---|
| EVEDEX | 200x | $50,000 on the top rung, $200,000 on the next |
| Aster | 200x | 400 USDT on the top rung, $800,000 on the next |
| edgeX | 100x | $1 million on the top rung, $3 million on the next |
| ApeX Omni | 100x | $100,000 at one per cent margin, dearer above it |
| Extended | 50x | $4 million on the top rung, $8 million on the next |
| Hyperliquid | 40x | $150 million, then the rung below |

Read on 18 September 2026 from each venue's own margin schedule, risk tiers or trading terms. A rung is
a ceiling on notional, not on margin: at 100x a $500,000 position needs $5,000 behind it, so the rung is
reached far sooner than the balance suggests. Caps are also cut in volatile hours and restored later
without an announcement, so a ladder read today is a snapshot and is dated as one.

## Numbers on the wall

- **200x** — Highest documented BTC cap: printed by two venues here, and the two are not offering the same thing
- **$50,000** — Where that cap still holds: the largest BTC position keeping the top cap anywhere on this list; the other venue printing the same
number stops at 400 USDT
- **$29.2 million** — Deepest BTC book measured: median resting depth within 10 basis points at edgeX, read every ten minutes through
22 September 2026
- **4** — Caps with no band beneath them: Lighter, Paradex, dYdX and Aevo print a top multiple and no step where it gives way, and are ranked
on no plate here
- **10** — Venues measured, of which six ranked: each read at its own order book rather than taken from a listing; six of the ten publish the band a
ranking on this site has to sort on

## Every venue, scored out of 6

Weights: Depth under the position 35 · Cost on the levered notional 25 · Where the fill is recorded 20 · What the record shows 15 · How far the ladder reaches 5. One formula for every plate on this site, fixed on 18 September 2026 before a single venue was scored: https://aurascopeapp.com/method

The six venues that print a rung and the size it holds to, in the order the formula puts them, which
starts with Extended at 4.51 out of six and is the one table on this
page the score sorts. The four
that print a multiple and no size are read and measured like the rest, and are named where they matter,
but an order sorted on a figure a venue never published cannot hold a row for it. The score does not
rank the cap. It ranks what happens to a position after the cap has been used: how
deep the book is, what the round trip costs on the levered notional, who holds the collateral while the
position is open and what the venue's public record says. The cap has its own table above, and the plates
built around it are ordered by the ladder rather than by this column.

| # | Venue | Score of 6 | Maker / taker | Open interest | 24h volume | Perpetual markets | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Extended | 4.51 | 0% / 0.025% | $84.0 million | $612.8 million | 325 | Hybrid |
| 2 | edgeX | 4.50 | 0.040% / 0.045% | $635.5 million | $2.5 billion | 172 | Hybrid |
| 3 | Aster | 4.42 | 0% / 0.040% | $1.4 billion | $3.2 billion | 578 | Own layer 1, operator-run |
| 4 | Hyperliquid | 3.96 | 0.015% / 0.045% | $8.7 billion | $13.4 billion | 324 | On-chain order book |
| 5 | ApeX Omni | 3.90 | 0.020% / 0.050% | $160.2 million | $449.5 million | 125 | Hybrid |
| 6 | EVEDEX | 3.82 | 0.015% / 0.045% | $704.9 million | $700.5 million | 52 | Hybrid |

Open interest and 24-hour volume is the venue speaking about itself, printed by CoinMarketCap on 22 September 2026; market counts come from each venue's own interface or documentation.

## Every plate in the series

**The ladder**

- [Crypto leverage trading platforms, ranked by the ladder](https://aurascopeapp.com/best-crypto-leverage-trading-platform) — the flagship plate — every cap beside the notional it holds to, and the book behind it
- [The highest leverage on offer, ordered by depth](https://aurascopeapp.com/highest-leverage-crypto-exchange) — the same venues re-sorted by the book, which reverses most of the ordering above
- [Every rung, with the totals written beside it](https://aurascopeapp.com/best-leverage-crypto-exchange) — the six sorted by the cap and the size it survives, with what the weighted formula makes of them underneath
- [Every venue on the list](https://aurascopeapp.com/leverage-trading-platforms-list) — sixteen venues — six ranked, four with a cap and no band, six with no book to read
- [Trading at 100x](https://aurascopeapp.com/best-crypto-exchange-for-100x-leverage) — the venues that reach a hundred times margin, ordered by what the round trip costs

**Cost, depth and comparisons**

- [Leverage trading fees compared](https://aurascopeapp.com/crypto-leverage-trading-fees-compared) — what a round trip costs on the levered notional, not on the margin behind it
- [Alternatives to Hyperliquid for a higher cap](https://aurascopeapp.com/hyperliquid-alternatives-for-higher-leverage) — where a trader goes above 40x, and what the book looks like when they get there
- [EVEDEX against edgeX](https://aurascopeapp.com/evedex-vs-edgex) — a 200x cap held to $50,000 against the deepest measured book on this list
- [Aster against Lighter](https://aurascopeapp.com/aster-lighter-leverage-compared) — 200x to 400 USDT against 50x with no notional tiers published at all

**Method and terms**

- [What a liquidation price is](https://aurascopeapp.com/what-is-a-liquidation-price) — how far a position can move before the venue closes it, worked through at four rungs
- [The formula behind every plate](https://aurascopeapp.com/method) — five criteria, their weights, what each one measures and where the numbers come from
- [About this series](https://aurascopeapp.com/about) — who publishes these plates, what the domain was before, and how the site is paid
- [Privacy](https://aurascopeapp.com/privacy) — what this site stores, which is close to nothing
- [Terms](https://aurascopeapp.com/terms-of-use) — what the plates are, and what they are not

## Where the resting orders actually sit

At 100x the liquidation price sits about one percent from the fill, so the question is not what the cap
allows but what is resting between the two. These are our own reads of each BTC perpetual book rather
than reported volume, which every venue publishes about itself on its own definition and nobody here
audits.

| Venue | Median BTC depth within 10 bps | Median spread |
|---|---|---|
| edgeX | $29.2 million | 0.04 bps |
| EVEDEX | $18.9 million | 4.12 bps |
| Aster | $14.4 million | 0.01 bps |
| Hyperliquid | $8.3 million | 0.12 bps |
| Extended | $7.7 million | 0.12 bps |
| ApeX Omni | $1.8 million | 0.65 bps |

Medians of 121 snapshots per venue, taken ten minutes apart on 22 September 2026.

## What each venue lists the ladder against

| Venue | Asset classes | Perpetual markets |
|---|---|---|
| Extended | crypto, stocks, FX, commodities, indices, pre-IPO | 325 |
| edgeX | crypto, stocks, commodities, FX | 172 |
| Aster | crypto, stocks, FX, commodities, indices, pre-IPO | 578 |
| Hyperliquid | crypto, stocks, FX, commodities, indices | 324 |
| ApeX Omni | crypto, stocks, commodities, indices | 125 |
| EVEDEX | crypto, commodities, FX, stocks, indices, pre-IPO | 52 |

Asset classes and market counts from each venue's own interface and documentation on 18 September 2026. Session hours are not compared: most of these venues publish no schedule we could find.

## What stands between a wallet and the first trade

| Venue | What is signed to get in | What the terms ask to see |
|---|---|---|
| Extended | Wallet signature, EVM or Starknet | Terms reserve the right to deny access after a KYT risk assessment |
| edgeX | Wallet or MPC login | None in the user terms we read |
| Aster | Wallet signature or email | Terms allow limited identity verification procedures |
| Hyperliquid | Wallet signature or email code | None in the onboarding documentation |
| ApeX Omni | Wallet, or email with a Privy wallet | Docs state no KYC and no forms |
| EVEDEX | Wallet signature | None to trade; on-chain AML screening on deposits |

Read off each venue's terms and its help pages, on 18 September 2026.

## What this series is, and what it refuses to do

A leverage cap is the easiest number in this market to publish and the least useful one to compare. Every
venue on these plates prints a single figure at the top of a page and then takes most of it back in a
table further down, where each rung names the largest position that still qualifies. On one of the two
venues printing 200x, that cap reaches three markets and holds to $50,000 of notional, after which the same
schedule steps to 150x at $75,000 and to 100x at $200,000; on a separate axis the same terms cap XRP,
gold, silver and crude oil at 100x, twenty-four markets at 75x and eighteen more at 50x. On the other venue printing 200x, the same
number holds to 400 USDT — about eight tenths of a percent of the first — before the ladder drops to 150x at
$300,000 and 100x at $800,000. Both are accurate. Quoted alone, both are useless.

So every plate in this series prints three things together: the cap, the notional the cap holds to, and
the measured depth of the book that position has to be closed into. The last of those is the one nobody
publishes, and the one that decides whether a levered position can be left at all. Reported volume is not
a substitute: every figure in that column is the venue's own, counted on the venue's own definition, and
none of it says what was standing in the book at the moment a position had to leave through it.

Which is why this desk now ranks six venues and measures ten. Four of the ten — Lighter, Paradex, dYdX
and Aevo — publish a multiple on BTC and no notional band beneath it: two percent of initial margin, or
five, and no step that says where the number stops. Their books are still read and their figures still
printed, because a reader may well want one of them. What cannot be done is set a bare multiple beside
a rung that names its own ceiling and call the result an order. Four venues advertise a maximum they
never size, and this is the page that says which.

This is paid placement, and a venue's position comes from the published formula and the published ladder
with nothing else moving a row. The formula was fixed on 18 September 2026, before any venue was read
against it, and it is printed in full on the method plate.

## What a liquidation distance looks like at each rung

Leverage is usually sold as buying power and is better read as distance. At 10x, the maintenance
level sits roughly ten percent from the entry price; at 50x, about two percent; at 100x, about one
percent; at 200x, about half of one percent, and that is before the taker fee on both legs and before
any funding payment. A BTC perpetual moves half a percent inside an ordinary hour several times a day.

This is why the weights on this domain sit where they do. Depth carries thirty-five of the hundred
points, because at half a percent of room the thing that closes a position is the book and not the
chart. Cost carries twenty-five, because the fee is charged on the levered notional: a nine basis
point round trip at 100x is nine percent of the money behind the position, paid before the trade is
right or wrong. The cap itself carries nothing, because it is not a measurement of anything.

## Why the highest number is rarely the interesting one

Sorted by headline cap, the ten venues measured here read 200x, 200x, 100x, 100x, 50x, 50x, 50x, 50x, 40x, 20x. Sorted
by the notional those caps survive to, it reads almost backwards: Hyperliquid's 40x holds to
$150 million of position value, Extended's 50x to $4 million, edgeX's 100x to $1 million, while the
two venues printing 200x hold that multiple to $50,000 and to 400 USDT. A trader closing a $2 million position cares
about the first ordering exactly not at all.

Which order matters depends entirely on position size, so this series publishes both and never
collapses them into one figure. The plates titled around a cap are ordered by the ladder. The plates
titled around cost or depth are ordered by the measurement they are named after. The score is a
column on the second group, is left off the first, and sets the sequence on neither; the whole of
it, criterion by criterion, is tabled on the method plate.

The Leverage Ladder desk, 24 September 2026. Corrections: corrections@aurascopeapp.com.

A plate is paid for.