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What is a long position?
A long position means owning an asset, or holding a contract, that gains value when the price rises. Buying a coin and holding it is the simplest long position; buying a futures contract or a call option is a long position too.
What it means for you
If you are long, a fall in price is your loss. Bought outright with your own money, the loss stops at what you paid. Held with borrowed money or through futures, a fall can trigger a margin call or a forced sale, and the loss can exceed your deposit.
How it works
In securities, having a long position means you own the security, usually expecting it to rise; the opposite is a short position. In futures, a long is one who has bought a contract, and the position obligates the holder to take delivery unless it is offset by an equal and opposite sale first. Closing out a long position is called liquidation in futures language. Across a whole futures market, the total of all long open interest always equals the total of all short open interest.
An example
Say you buy 1 coin at $100. If the price rises to $120, your long position is up $20; if it falls to $70, it is down $30. Those gains and losses stay on paper until you sell.
Sources: Investor.gov: Stock Purchases and Sales: Long and Short, CFTC Glossary, CFTC: Commitments of Traders explanatory notes · checked 4 October 2026
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