A preferred cryptocurrency alternate introduced on Sunday that it was curbing a sort of high-risk buying and selling that has been blamed partially for sharp fluctuations within the worth of Bitcoin and the casino-like ambiance on such platforms globally.

The transfer by the alternate, FTX, would cut back the dimensions of the bets that buyers could make by decreasing the quantity of leverage it provides to twenty instances from 101 instances. Leverage multiplies the merchants’ probability for not solely revenue, but in addition loss.

“We’re going to be those to take step one right here,” Sam Bankman-Fried, 29, the billionaire founding father of the platform, which operates from Hong Kong, said on Twitter on Sunday. “Right now, we’re eradicating excessive leverage from FTX. The best allowable will likely be 20x.”

The announcement got here after The New York Occasions, in an article published online Friday, detailed the dangerous trades supplied on FTX and different international exchanges like Binance and BitMEX that accelerated a world crash in Could. That month, greater than $20 billion value of these bets have been liquidated on cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide.

Mr. Bankman-Fried mentioned decreasing the leverage amounted to “a step within the path the business is headed, and has been headed for some time,” including that “whereas we expect that lots of the arguments are excessive leverage miss the mark, we additionally don’t suppose it’s an necessary a part of the crypto ecosystem, and in some circumstances it’s not a wholesome a part of it.”

World platforms like FTX permit merchants to borrow massive when betting on value fluctuations — merchants don’t purchase and promote cryptocurrencies however as a substitute predict the place costs within the underlying belongings will head. These bets, often known as derivatives, imply that if buyers put up $1,000, the alternate extends them credit score to permit them to make a wager on the long run value of cryptocurrency value as a lot as $101,000 on FTX. Now, with the brand new cap, the utmost in that transaction can be $20,000.

One of these transaction will not be imagined to be out there to nonprofessional buyers in the US, however — not less than traditionally — a few of these buyers used workarounds to commerce on the websites.

Leverage leaves buyers rather more weak to having their accounts liquidated on account of an automatic margin name if the worth of cryptocurrency strikes in opposition to their prediction, and they don’t have sufficient collateral of their accounts to again up their bets.

That’s what occurred in Could. As soon as costs of cryptocurrency started dropping primarily based on market-moving occasions, like China’s announcement of a regulatory crackdown or the choice by Tesla to halt Bitcoin funds, it mechanically prompted the exchanges to liquidate the accounts of probably the most extremely leveraged buyers earlier than their collateral turned inadequate to cowl their positions.

“These liquidations are clearly an enormous issue within the value crash,” Clara Medalie, the analysis lead at Kaiko, a cryptocurrency market knowledge supplier in Paris, mentioned, recalling the sudden decline in cryptocurrency worth in mid-Could. “It’s a vicious cycle.”

Mr. Bankman-Fried mentioned on Sunday that solely a small share of merchants reap the benefits of the utmost out there leverage. He additionally argued that FTX had fewer liquidations than different exchanges and he had lengthy tried to “encourage accountable buying and selling.”

Nonetheless, he had predicted in an interview final week that some buyers may not welcome any transfer to chop leverage. “We’d get shopper outcry if we removed it, and we’d get very unhealthy press,” he mentioned. “However it is perhaps the best factor to do.”

Mr. Bankman-Fried additionally acknowledged that top leverage created a notion that exchanges like his inspired dangerous buying and selling, regardless that he asserted this was not a good conclusion.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency alternate, provides leverage as much as 125 instances. Changpeng Zhao, the Chinese language-Canadian founding father of Binance and a developer tracing his skilled roots to Wall Road, has mentioned that the acute leverage figures have been only a “advertising and marketing gimmick” and that the majority merchants don’t use them.

Timothy Massad, the previous chairman of the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee, which regulates derivatives in the US, mentioned that he embraced FTX’s determination and that he hoped different platforms like Binance would observe.

The change, he mentioned, is perhaps motivated partially by FTX’s success this past week in raising $900 million in enterprise capital, probably the most ever for a cryptocurrency alternate. The high-leverage choices on FTX are extra of a reputational legal responsibility as Mr. Bankman-Fried seems to be to develop his platform’s international attain, Mr. Massad mentioned.

“Sam has larger visions and this transfer eliminates a flash level that may get in the way in which,” Mr. Massad mentioned. “Take it off the desk.”