I wanted to ask if someone could explain in the simplest way how to get started with long and short positions. I don’t really understand how it all works. I’ve heard of things like x10 or x5 leverage, but I’m not sure how to actually open a short position, for example. I’m just afraid I’ll mess something up.
I’m currently using Bitget (if I’m even allowed to mention that here).
Since you've mentioned that you are pretty new in this world, I would advise you not to get into futures and margins trading because it contains too much risk for a newbie to manage, and you will only bust your capital instead of getting any profits from leverage trading, so, it's better for you to stay away from futures at the moment, try to learn as much as you can about trading and the market, do spot trading initially once you have learned enough, and later, when you gain some experience, then you can think of getting into futures.
I will tell you what leverage means just for the sake of your knowledge. Leverage means that you can open positions multiple folds of your capital or margin, which means, if you have $20, and you use 5x leverage, you can open a $100 position with only $20. This is useful because the higher your position size is, the quicker you will get profits, but using higher leverage also expose you to higher risks because your position can get liquidated quicker with higher leverage.