People who say that leverage trading is a scam, chances are that that person does not understand and has no knowledge of leverage trading.
Because for people who have large capital and have the knowledge and ability to use leverage trading, certainly can make a large profit from
trading leverage. If you are a newbie, you should avoid using leverage trading, because the risk is quite large. If we are not careful, we can
lose all the capital we have.
Leverage trading is not a scam but leverage trading in crypto is a bit fishy because crypto market can be easily manipulated and all exchange that offering is not a regulated exchange even binance or bitmex. The example of OP is a bit dumb because it's clearly that he didn't understand well how to leverage trading and maybe he is using a high leverage.
There's a possibility that exchange or a group whales manipulating the price because there is no regulators looking on crypto trading activity on exchange. Imagine bitcoin sometimes pump instantly 5% within an hour then back again to the original price on a few minutes after the pump. There is no way this is a regular trading. IMHO