3am. Red portfolio. Liquidated. One tab open. I learned everything that night after realizing the exchange had eaten my margin before the price even moved against me. When I lost my initial $5,400, I blamed the volatility of $ADA and the manipulation of $BTC. I was wrong. I was bleeding out from a thousand tiny cuts called funding rates and trading fees. Imagine you are trying to fill a bucket with water, but every time you pour a cup in, someone drills a hole in the bottom. You keep pouring faster, thinking you just need more volume, but the bucket stays empty. That is high-leverage trading without accounting for the cost of maintaining the position.

Funding rates are the "rent" you pay to keep a leveraged...