Did your SOL long see the bounce? A beginner look at leverage on MEXC after the 89.81 midterm-night low

This is a beginner walk-through. Every market number comes from MEXC's public futures data at 10:55 AM ET on Nov 4, 2026.

What SOL did

SOL_USDT ranged from a low of 89.81 to a high of 98.15 over the previous 24 hours. The low came in the 10 PM ET hour on Nov 3, the same stretch when early US midterm results showed Democrats winning control of Congress and crypto sold off across the board. By the 10 AM ET hour on Nov 4 the market had turned, and SOL printed its high. At 10:55 AM ET the last price was 96.43, the fair price (MEXC's name for the mark price used for liquidation) was 96.45, and the index was 96.46. The daily change showed +2.71, which puts the 24h reference open near 93.72.

The two trades

Let's say both friends entered at 93.72. To keep the math simple for beginners, we ignore fees and maintenance margin. With leverage, the margin you post is 1 divided by leverage of the position value, so a move of roughly that size against you wipes it out.

From 93.72, the low of 89.81 was a 4.17% drop. The 10x friend sweated through it. The 25x friend was liquidated, then watched SOL rally 4.73% from the entry to the 98.15 high without them. Real maintenance margin makes the 25x case worse, not better, because the liquidation line moves closer to the entry.

Why this matters more than the news

Neither friend needed to predict the election. They just needed a position that could survive the night. That is the most common beginner mistake on event nights: picking leverage by how confident you feel, instead of by how far price can move before you are proven right.

A simple way to choose leverage

Look at the recent range. Here SOL's 24h range was 8.34, about 9.29% measured from the low. If a coin can move 9% in a day, a position that dies after a 4% move is a coin flip. Divide 100 by the range you expect, then use less than that. For a 9% range, that points to well under 11x, with room for fees and maintenance on top.

Remember the fair price

MEXC liquidates on fair price, not the last trade. Right now they are only 0.02 apart on SOL, but on a fast candle the last trade can spike further than fair price. That can help you survive a short wick, but it is not something to plan around. Treat any extra room from fair price as a bonus, never as part of your plan, because a real move takes fair price with it.

Funding is a small extra cost

SOL_USDT funding was 0.01% per 8 hours at 10:55 AM ET, with limits of +/-0.75%. On a 1,000 USDT position, that is 0.10 USDT per settlement. Small, but it adds up if you hold for weeks, and it can change every period.

Try it on your own chart

Open $SOL.USDT and find yesterday's low. Then do the same for $BTC.USDT, $ETH.USDT, $DOGE.USDT and $ADA.USDT. For each one, ask: if I had entered at the open, what is the highest leverage that would have survived the low? Write that number down before your next trade, not after. Then compare it with the leverage you normally use. If your usual setting is higher than the number you just found, that is the gap between how you trade and what the market actually did last night.