Delta Exchange has introduced ‘Cross Margin’ mode. In this blog we will understand some key differences between Isolated and Cross margin mode and how Cross margin will benefit traders. 
<h2>Isolated Margin</h2>
In this margin method, positions/ orders in a contract behave as if in a separate sub-account and have access only to the margin assigned to them. 
 
Salient properties:
 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">You can select the leverage at which you wish to run positions/ orders in a contract. Margin requirement is driven by the selected leverage</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The loss that you an incur in a position is capped at the margin assigned to the position</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Liquidation of position in a contract has no bearing on your other open positions. Any balance available that is not explicitly assigned to a position will not be automatically utilized to prevent its liquidation </li>
</ul>
<h2>Cross Margin</h2>
In this margin method, collateral in the account is shared for the margining of all open positions and orders.
 
Salient properties:
 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">All positions are run at the highest allowed leverage, i.e. at any time only the minimum required margin is allocated to each position/ order</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Sharing of margin also unlocks offsetting of unrealised PNLs. Unrealised loss in a position can be offset by unrealised profit in another position</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Liquidation is an account level event which is triggered when your account doesn’t have sufficient funds to meet the maintenance margin requirements</li>
</ul>
 
<h2>Key differences between Cross and Isolated</h2>
<table style="width: 916px; height: 268px;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>Cross Margin </td>
<td>Isolated Margin</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Leverage</td>
<td>Automatically uses the highest allowed leverage</td>
<td>Trader has to manually choose the leverage before placing the trade</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Auto Top Up</td>
<td>Not required, since margin allocation to position/ orders is dynamic</td>
<td>Trader can enable auto top up feature to automatically add more margin to a trade</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>PnL offsetting</td>
<td>The unrealised profit from an open position can be used to support a loss making position or to place new orders. </td>
<td>All positions are independent of each other.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Liquidation Handling</td>
<td>Automatically utilizes the entire available balance to prevent liquidations. Hence, the entire account will be liquidated in case of liquidation. </td>
<td>Limits loss to the initial margin assigned to a position. Only the specific position will be liquidation in case of liquidation.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2>How is Cross Margin better?</h2>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Effective Leverage 
<div></div>
 
Cross Margin always allocates margin at the max possible leverage for all your positions, enabling you to utilize your available margin more efficiently. Also, by utilizing your entire account balance, you have the flexibility to take larger positions without worrying about individual margin requirements. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Multi currency collateral
<div></div>
 
Cross Margin also includes the multi-currency collateral system in which the dollarised values of coins other than USDT are included in the USDT Collateral Available. This means that balances in coins like BTC and ETH can be used as margin for trading in USDT settled contracts. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">PnL Offsetting
<div></div>
 
The unrealised profit from an open position can be used to support a loss making position or to place new orders minimizing chances of liquidation.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Long option value
<div></div>
 
The value of long options positions also add to the available margin. A natural corollary of this is that if you are looking to acquire both long and short options positions, acquiring long options positions first would be advantageous from margin requirement perspective.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Simplified Management
<div></div>
 
With Cross Margin, you don’t need to allocate separate margins for each position manually. The platform automatically handles the distribution of margin, making it more convenient and efficient to manage your trades.</li>
</ul>
<h2>How to enable cross margin?</h2>
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Visit the Options/Futures page: Margin mode is an account level property. You can have one of the three margin modes for your main account as well as sub account. By default, Isolated margin mode will be selected for your accounts. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Click on the margin mode button 
<a href="https://delta.exchange/blog/cross-margin/screenshot-2023-07-25-at-1-26-25-pm/" rel="attachment wp-att-32107"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-32107" src="https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-1.26.25-PM-1024x572.png" alt="" width="525" height="293" srcset="https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-1.26.25-PM-1024x572.png 1024w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-1.26.25-PM-300x168.png 300w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-1.26.25-PM-768x429.png 768w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-1.26.25-PM-1536x859.png 1536w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-1.26.25-PM-2048x1145.png 2048w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-1.26.25-PM-24x13.png 24w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-1.26.25-PM-36x20.png 36w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-1.26.25-PM-48x27.png 48w" sizes="(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px" /></a> 
</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Select “Cross margin” 
<a href="https://delta.exchange/blog/cross-margin/screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6-58-14-pm/" rel="attachment wp-att-32108"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-32108" src="https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.58.14-PM-1024x653.png" alt="" width="525" height="335" srcset="https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.58.14-PM-1024x653.png 1024w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.58.14-PM-300x191.png 300w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.58.14-PM-768x490.png 768w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.58.14-PM-1536x980.png 1536w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.58.14-PM-24x15.png 24w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.58.14-PM-36x23.png 36w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.58.14-PM-48x31.png 48w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.58.14-PM.png 1618w" sizes="(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px" /></a> 
</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Click on “Switch to Cross Margin” 
<a href="https://delta.exchange/blog/cross-margin/screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6-59-50-pm/" rel="attachment wp-att-32109"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-32109" src="https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.59.50-PM-1024x898.png" alt="" width="525" height="460" srcset="https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.59.50-PM-1024x898.png 1024w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.59.50-PM-300x263.png 300w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.59.50-PM-768x674.png 768w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.59.50-PM-24x21.png 24w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.59.50-PM-36x32.png 36w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.59.50-PM-48x42.png 48w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-26-at-6.59.50-PM.png 1464w" sizes="(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px" /></a></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Cross margin gets enabled and you will be able to see the IM (Initial Margin) and MM (Maintenance Margin) bars. This will indicate how much initial margin you need to open a fresh position and the margin requirement to keep a position open respectively. If the MM bar reaches close to 100% your account will get liquidated. Hence, you should keep a tab on this bar and add more margin into your account to avoid liquidation. 
<a href="https://delta.exchange/blog/cross-margin/screenshot-2023-07-25-at-3-15-52-pm/" rel="attachment wp-att-32110"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-32110" src="https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-3.15.52-PM-1024x547.png" alt="" width="525" height="280" srcset="https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-3.15.52-PM-1024x547.png 1024w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-3.15.52-PM-300x160.png 300w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-3.15.52-PM-768x411.png 768w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-3.15.52-PM-1536x821.png 1536w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-3.15.52-PM-2048x1095.png 2048w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-3.15.52-PM-24x13.png 24w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-3.15.52-PM-36x19.png 36w, https://static.delta.exchange/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-3.15.52-PM-48x26.png 48w" sizes="(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px" /></a></li>
</ol>

Delta Exchange has introduced 'Cross Margin’ mode. In this blog we will understand some key differences between Isolated and Cross margin mode and how Cross margin will benefit t