What margin actually is
When you open a position, the system locks a portion of your Futures account balance as margin. This money has not left your account — it is simply unavailable for other use while the position is open. When you close, the locked margin is released and settled together with the profit or loss from that trade, returning to your available balance.
Margin does not disappear. What you get back is your margin plus any profit, or your margin minus any loss.
Why doesn't my available balance increase noticeably after closing?
In Cross Margin mode, all available funds in your account collectively support all open positions. If you have other positions still open and those positions are carrying an unrealised loss, that loss is deducted from your available balance in real time.
In other words: the margin you just recovered from position A may be offset by the floating loss on position B. The funds have come back — they are just being held down by another open position.
Does -100% on screen mean liquidation is about to happen?
No. The PnL percentage shown on screen is calculated relative to the initial margin of that specific position. It has no direct bearing on whether liquidation will occur.
In Cross Margin mode, liquidation is triggered by the overall net equity of your entire account, not the loss percentage of any single position. As long as the account still holds enough reserve balance to sustain the position, the system will not force close it — even if that position is showing a loss beyond -100%. Liquidation only occurs at the moment the account's total assets fall below the minimum maintenance margin requirement.
What is the difference between closing voluntarily and being liquidated?
When you close a position yourself, regardless of whether the trade was profitable or not, any remaining assets are returned to your account for you to use freely.
Forced liquidation is different. The system closes the position at market price, and all remaining account assets are used to cover the loss. You have no control over the timing or the price. The outcome can leave very little — or nothing — behind.
This is the critical distinction: closing voluntarily keeps you in control; liquidation hands that control entirely to the system.
What is the difference between Cross Margin and Isolated Margin?
The settlement logic at close is the same for both modes — margin is released and returned together with the trade's profit or loss. The difference is not in how funds are returned, but in how risk is distributed.
Cross Margin draws from a shared pool made up of all available funds in your account. When a position moves into loss, the system automatically draws on your remaining balance to keep the position alive, which pushes the liquidation price further away and gives the position more room to survive. The tradeoff is significant: if the entire account is eventually exhausted, all funds across the account are wiped out together.
Isolated Margin assigns a fixed, separate margin to each position. Any loss is contained within that allocated amount and cannot affect the rest of your account. The liquidation price is closer, and the position is more easily triggered for forced close — but even if it is liquidated, the loss is limited strictly to the margin set aside for that position, leaving everything else untouched.
In short: Cross Margin trades the safety of your entire account for a lower immediate liquidation risk. Isolated Margin trades a higher per-position liquidation risk for protection of your broader account. Neither is inherently better — it depends on which risk structure suits your approach.
Need to use your funds after closing?
Your Futures account and Spot account are separate. After closing a position, funds remain in the Futures account. To move them to your Spot account, you will need to perform a manual transfer.