If you can get a margin call, I'm pretty sure you are, in some way, dealing in debt. You borrow something and promise to pay it back later. That borrowing is done against a certain amount of collateral. That's debt. If the thing you're going to pay back later loses value in the interim, you buy the thing back off the market at the new lower price, and hand it over - at a profit! If the thing you're going to pay back later rises in value, at a certain point your liability will exceed the amount of collateral you have on hand, and you get automatically liquidated.

I won't pretend to understand any of that variable multiplier and collateral ratios and other such madness; I don't really know what it means. But I'm pretty sure about the first thing.

And, sure, on a long enough timescale, maybe Crypto beats fiat. I mean, hell, I'm here, right?! :)

But margin-trading isn't long-term. One tiny bump one way or another and you can get wiped out. Or make a mint. It's collateralized debt, no matter how you mark it.

On the stock side, the people who work in derivatives markets like that tend to be very short-term day-trader types. Or, they're people who have set up side-hedges to cover themselves if something goes very, very wrong.

(There's actually some really interesting stuff you can do, where you buy something you believe in, and hold it. And then you get some kind of derivative-style bet against it, and hold that too (up to a point). If your main bet pays off, you get margin called on your secondary bet, but if your main bet was good enough, you're still in profit. If your main bet tanks - horrifically - then you at least get a consolation prize on your secondary bet - and it's fine, you still hold your main bet (for now, unless you panic and sell it)).

So for you - and what I can figure that your positions are - I would dump a big chunk of money into good ole' BTC (or STEEM, or whatever currency floats your boat. Or a nice 'basket' of them). And then I would dump a smaller chunk of money - your hedge - into a short against it (SBD maybe? Or some other BitShares thing I don't know about yet?). You just have to work out a spreadsheet of your potential gains to potential losses, or whatever. And you'd have to remember; if your main 'position' goes well, you will lose your hedge. And that's fine, that means you've done well! I think the other thing to note is that you want those accounts to be separate; so that your main asset doesn't get lumped in with the collateral you have on your short. You want the short to liquidate itself (going to zero) when its collateral is spent, not have it keep going and run against your main bet!!!

DISCLAIMER - not financial advice. I don't know what I'm doing. I have never done the thing I just talked about.

I think I read something on Wikipedia once about 'bracketing options' - that might have more details if that's something you're worried about.