Bitcoin liquidations, explained.
A liquidation is a forced close — the exchange wipes out a leveraged futures or perp position because margin ran out. Real liqs show up as actual market orders, not estimates. Clusters matter because one forced sell can push price into the next trader's liquidation price, and the chain runs.
Futures/perps, not options
This page is about leveraged futures and perpetual swaps. You post margin, price moves against you, maintenance margin fails, the exchange closes you out. BTC options are different — you can lose premium or settle at expiry, but there's no perp-style liquidation cascade on a long call. For options positioning see gamma and max pain & PCR.
Long vs short
Long liquidated
Price fell through someone's long. Exchange sells to close — adds sell pressure into a drop that's often already underway.
Short liquidated
Price rose through someone's short. Exchange buys to close — adds buy pressure into a squeeze.
The long/short split on a liq screen tells you which side got carried out, not which side will win next. A wall of long liqs after a 5% dump is usually confirmation of crowded long leverage, not a reversal signal by itself.
Cascades
Leverage stacks at similar entry levels — round numbers, breakout retests, funding-heavy zones. When price hits that band, the first liquidations move spot, which triggers the next margin call, and so on. That's the cascade people mean when they say "liq hunt."
Cascades burn out when there isn't enough open leverage left at the next price step, or when spot stalls and funding/oi reset. Watching replay alongside liqs shows whether OI was building into the move or already unwinding.
Reading a heatmap
Price on the Y-axis, time on the X-axis, shade = notional liquidated in that cell. Bright bands show where forced flow concentrated.
- Horizontal bands — a price level that absorbed a lot of leverage. Sometimes acts as support/resistance on retest; sometimes just a graveyard.
- Vertical spikes — fast move, many accounts hit at once. Often news or a break of a crowded level.
- Largest single event — one big position gone. Worth noting; doesn't generalize to the whole book.
Our liquidation page uses 1H / 24H / 7D windows and a live event tape per venue.
What our data includes
Real captured events from Deribit, OKX and Bybit — stored
in chain_history.db alongside option chain snapshots. Not
modeled, not extrapolated to "total market."
Binance is not included. Its public liquidation WebSocket doesn't deliver reliably from our VPS, and there's no usable REST fallback. Totals here are a partial sample — directionally useful, not complete market volume. Same caveat on the BTC hub 24h liq stat and digest daily liq $ line.
How liqs fit with other reads
- After a sharp move — check liqs to see if leverage flushed or if OI is still heavy (OI analysis).
- Into expiry — option gamma and perp liqs can interact around 08:00 UTC Friday; see crypto expiry.
- Cross-venue — Deribit perps vs OKX vs Bybit share on venues; liqs won't match Binance-heavy headlines.
- Vol spike — liq cascades often coincide with IV jumping on vol surface; cause and effect both ways.
Mistakes
Treating partial venue totals as "the market"
Missing Binance (and anything else we don't capture) means you can undercount a busy day by a lot. Compare direction and timing, not absolute $ to Twitter aggregates.
Front-running liq levels
Published "liquidation maps" from third parties are often estimated off OI and leverage assumptions. Our feed is executed trades only — different thing, usually lagging.
Confusing liqs with options pain
Max pain is writer positioning on the option chain. Perp liqs are margin calls on directional leverage. Both can matter the same hour; they're not the same data.
FAQ
What is a bitcoin liquidation?
Forced close of a leveraged futures/perp when margin fails. Executed trade.
Options too?
No — this is futures/perps. Options have mark-price liquidations on short premium in some setups, but that's not what our heatmap tracks.
Long vs short?
Long liq = forced sell after drop. Short liq = forced buy after rally.
Why totals differ site to site?
Different venue lists, modeled vs captured, dedupe rules. Ours: Deribit + OKX + Bybit, captured only.
Trade off liqs alone?
No. Lagging sign of crowded leverage. Pair with price, OI, and context.