First-party telemetry from Leverage.Trading shows how retail traders measure risk before the market headlines hit.
As volatility wiped out billions in cryptocurrencies and stocks this summer, most headlines told this story after the fact – counting liquidations after the positions had already disappeared. But new data from Leverage. Commercial matters Global Leverage and Risk Report (August 2025) suggests that retail stress is building long before markets break.
Based on anonymized telemetry from 27,416 traders in 94 countries, the report captures how traders used risk calculators to pre-test liquidation levels, margin exposures and position sizes – a behavioral signal rarely visible in broker data.
The activity reflects traders active on major crypto trading platforms and crypto futures exchanges, where pre-trade checks often determine position size and liquidation tolerance before orders are executed.
From liquidations to signals
Traditional stock market feeds record liquidations as soon as they have already occurred. Leverage.Trading’s data flips the lens: it captures how traders trade planned risk before placing trades.
One notable case: On July 11, security checks on liquidations rose 5x above baseline, just hours before a $1.29 billion Bitcoin shortfall. Headlines later reported the losses; telemetry showed the panic in motion for the crash.
This mirrors patterns seen in professional volatility data. On the same day, CoinGlass recorded one of the largest funding rate inversions since 2022, while Barron’s and The Block highlighted the wave of forced liquidations in derivatives markets.
The panic tape: August in focus
August 2025 brought about a series of live stress tests.
- August 12 – ETH rally
- As Ether climbed to $4,400, liquidation checks rose 23% overnight, a defensive move that anticipated turbulence.
- August 15 – $6 billion options expire
- US traders delivered a 13.7% jump in risk controls as BTC/ETH contracts expired, recalibrating positions in real time.
- August 16 – Panic peak
- The sharpest increase ever in a single day: Liquidation checks rose 28.5%, marking the peak of retail stress.
- August 17 – Pre-liquidation wave
- Hours before a $576 million liquidation wave, risk controls rose another 19.4% – a final defensive battle before positions collapsed.
“The smartest traders don’t wait for the headlines,” says Anton Palovaara, founder of Leverage.Trading. “They looked at the numbers first, and our August data showed that the tension started long before the market broke.”
Global and American insights
The dataset also revealed geographic patterns in risk behavior:
- India: Cross-asset position sizes rose 18.5% as traders mixed crypto, currencies and equities under pressure from the rupee.
- Turkey: Activity spiked 12% during the lira’s collapse, suggesting locals piled on high debt as the currency cracked.
- Southeast Asia: Traders nearly doubled stop-loss checks around Bitcoin’s whipsaws in July, bracing for $300 million+ wipeouts.
The August data set reflected the defensive behavior of traders using major crypto futures trading platforms. US traders in particular relied on liquidation controls around regulated platforms like CME, while offshore platform users tested higher leverage scenarios under looser ceilings.
Perhaps most telling, 85% of all liquidation security checks took place on mobile devices, highlighting how risk management is increasingly happening on the go, one inch at a time.
Towards a retail VIX
Institutions use the CBOE VIX to track volatility expectations. Leverage.Trading wants to extend that concept to retail with the upcoming Retail VIX – an index built from millions of aggregated calculator checks.
The idea is not a prediction, but a behavior: when the risk tests are three times above baseline, it indicates depressed retail sentiment.
Methodology & Transparency
The findings come from anonymized proprietary use of Leverage.Trading’s calculators – tools that retail traders use every day to plan positions on crypto trading platforms, margin exchanges and futures markets in the US and globally.
Unlike broker records that only reveal executed trades, this telemetry records the pre-trade risk checks that are performed before any capital is committed.
The report reflects 27,416 unique traders and 1.4 million setups analyzed between July 14 and August 17, 2025.
- Data source: Anonymized telemetry from calculators (liquidation, leverage, margin, futures P&L).
- Dimensions: device class, geography, usage scenario, session intensity.
- Privacy: No personally identifiable information is collected.
- Validation: Patterns are compared against server analytics and major market events.
This approach provides an upstream perspective on market psychology – not just which trades were executed, but also how traders prepared to survive.
Citation
Leverage. Act is an independent research and education publisher focused on crypto leverage trading, crypto futures, margin trading and derivatives trading. Founded in 2022 by Anton Palovaara and managed by Prospective Aimline SL in Córdoba, Spain, the brand publishes trading calculators, behavioral data reports, strategy guides, unbiased exchange reviews and definition explainers used by more than 850,000 traders worldwide.
Editor’s note: Leverage.Trading operates as a first-party data publisher and analytics hub within the leverage ecosystem, specializing in retail behavior telemetry, pre-trade risk assessments and educational research on derivatives markets. The brand also conducts transparent reviews of major crypto leverage, margin and futures exchanges, focusing on usability, regulation and risk management practices. The datasets and reports are cited by leading crypto, fintech and institutional trading media as reference material for retail risk sentiment analysis and market structure analysis.
About the author: Anton Palovaara is the founder of Leverage.Trading and a derivatives trader with over a decade of experience in crypto and FX markets. He leads the brand’s research into retail risk behavior and pre-trade analysis.
