The problem is not speculation or market risk, but leverage.
Say you covert 1000 USD into BTC, and you can convert back without costs. If BTC goes up 100%, you should be able to get back 2000 USD. If BTC goes to 0, you get zero. Leverage is 1 as your return relates 1:1 to the return on BTC.
Now let's look at leverage, say we take a leverage of 100 (not a crazy amount). This means that your return in USD goes 100x the return in BTC, so if BTC goes up 1% you earn 100% (and walk away with 2000 USD). It also means that if BTC goes down 1%, you lose everything.
The other thing is that if you have insufficient margin, the venue close down your position by putting it on the market. If BTC has a short dip and quickly recovers, the venue will have closed down your position at the point where you lost your margin (all your money). This can be exactly the -1%, but depends on the market and the liquidity. If BTC will go up 10% but does so in a noisy way, you might be right but the venue could have closed down your position the moment BTC touched -1% during the random movements.
Eveb worse, say that BTC drops 10% in a very rapid move because of some tough news and panic. The venue puts the orders to sell your position at the -1% mark but because of lack of liquidity these orders get filled at -10% and your loss becomes 10.000 USD. Even if BTC recovers quickly, you keep your loss because the position is closed. That is the problem.
So, in a nutshell, with unleveraged investing you can lose everything, but with leveraged investing you can end up in serious debt.
> Eveb worse, say that BTC drops 10% in a very rapid move because of some tough news and panic. The venue puts the orders to sell your position at the -1% mark but because of lack of liquidity these orders get filled at -10% and your loss becomes 10.000 USD. Even if BTC recovers quickly, you keep your loss because the position is closed. That is the problem.
Losses in the Crypto world are limited to the amount of capital you put in a certain position. This has the side effect of (maybe) not collecting the full amount on the up-side. Pretty much all exchanges do this, since it's almost impossible to go after individuals when they go bankrupt.
Now the popular derivatives frameworks have sizable insurance funds for such events; but clawbacks are a thing in the crypto world.
Say you covert 1000 USD into BTC, and you can convert back without costs. If BTC goes up 100%, you should be able to get back 2000 USD. If BTC goes to 0, you get zero. Leverage is 1 as your return relates 1:1 to the return on BTC.
Now let's look at leverage, say we take a leverage of 100 (not a crazy amount). This means that your return in USD goes 100x the return in BTC, so if BTC goes up 1% you earn 100% (and walk away with 2000 USD). It also means that if BTC goes down 1%, you lose everything.
The other thing is that if you have insufficient margin, the venue close down your position by putting it on the market. If BTC has a short dip and quickly recovers, the venue will have closed down your position at the point where you lost your margin (all your money). This can be exactly the -1%, but depends on the market and the liquidity. If BTC will go up 10% but does so in a noisy way, you might be right but the venue could have closed down your position the moment BTC touched -1% during the random movements.
Eveb worse, say that BTC drops 10% in a very rapid move because of some tough news and panic. The venue puts the orders to sell your position at the -1% mark but because of lack of liquidity these orders get filled at -10% and your loss becomes 10.000 USD. Even if BTC recovers quickly, you keep your loss because the position is closed. That is the problem.
So, in a nutshell, with unleveraged investing you can lose everything, but with leveraged investing you can end up in serious debt.