What AreLiquidation Alerts— How to Read Them and Track Cascades
A liquidation alert fires when a leveraged position above a size threshold gets forcibly closed. Single alerts are noise. Cascades carry information. The hero below shows the live liquidation pulse from our dashboard — the 6 metrics we watch and the most recent alert from the feed. The body of the article walks through what each line of an alert means.
3 cascade events in last 24h. White spikes = 10+ alerts in 5 min, $50M+ wiped on one side.
Section 01 · Quick answer
What it is, why it matters, when to act
What it is
A real-time alert that a leveraged position above 10K-100K USD was just forcibly closed by the exchange. Single alerts are background noise. Sequences of alerts in 5 minutes are signal.
Long vs short
Long liquidations fire on price drops (longs lose). Short liquidations fire on price spikes (shorts lose). Knowing which side is bleeding tells you who is trapped.
When to act
Cascades at known support or resistance with 50M+ USD wiped in 5 min often mark local exhaustion. Mid-range cascades carry less signal.
Section 02 · The basics
A liquidation in plain words
A liquidation is the forced closure of a leveraged futures position by the exchange. It happens when the trader's margin is no longer enough to cover the open loss. The exchange closes the position at market price, takes a small fee, and the trader loses the margin posted on that position.
The math is brutal. With 10x leverage, a 10% adverse move wipes the position. With 50x, a 2% move. With 100x, a 1% move. On crypto's normal volatility, 100x positions get wiped on routine intraday moves. This is why most liquidations come from over-leveraged retail trades. Background details on the leverage mechanics in our crypto futures guide.
Long liquidation: a leveraged long position dies on a price drop. The trader was betting up, price went down. Short liquidation: a leveraged short dies on a spike up. The trader was betting down, price went up. Both look like one-line events, but each one forces a market order on the wrong side of the trade — a long liquidation triggers a forced market sell, pushing price down further; a short triggers a forced market buy, pushing price up. That feedback loop is what kicks off cascades.
Section 03 · Anatomy of an alert
What a liquidation alert looks like
Below is the actual format of a liquidation alert from the live feed. Every field carries information. The breakdown after the card explains what each line tells you and what to look at next.
Liquidation12 min ago · 14:23 UTC
$ETH/USDT
Liquidated long$4,210,000
Price$3,247.80
ExchangeBinance Perp
Leverage est.~25x
Coin liqs 24h$38.4M
$ETH/USDT
The coin and trading pair. Always paired against USDT on perpetual futures — that is the unit of margin and PnL. The ticker tells you which market the position lived in.
Liquidated long
The side of the wiped position. "Long" means the trader was betting on price up - they lost when it went down. "Short" means betting on price down - lost when it went up. The side tells you which direction the move came from.
$4,210,000
The size of the wiped position in USDT. Anything above 1M is meaningful. Above 5M and the alert is noteworthy. Above 10M and it almost certainly contributed to a cascade. Sizes under 100K usually don't show in the feed.
Price $3,247.80
The price at which the position was forcibly closed. Mark this on your chart. Liquidation prices cluster - many positions die at the same level. The cluster tells you where leverage was concentrated.
Binance Perp
The exchange where the position lived. We track Binance, Bybit, OKX, MEXC perpetuals. Cross-exchange cascades (alerts from 3+ exchanges in the same minute) are the strongest signal — it means the move is global, not one exchange's bad book.
~25x
Estimated leverage on the position. Approximated from how far the liquidation price sat from recent mark prices — not an exact reading. High leverage estimates (50x+) flag retail panic trades. Low estimates (5-10x) usually mean institutional or sophisticated positions that ran into bad news.
Coin liqs 24h
Total liquidation volume on this coin over 24 hours. Context check: $38M on ETH is 3x the typical daily figure — the day is unusually one-sided. Compare against the coin's normal range to know whether you're seeing a slow bleed or a real cascade.
Section 04 · Dashboard metrics
6 dashboard metrics that filter out 90% of false signals
A single alert in isolation is meaningless. These six metrics from the /live dashboard turn the feed into actual signal. Cross-check all six before treating any cascade as actionable.
Liquidations 24h volume
$284.7M
Total amount wiped across all coins in the last 24 hours. Gives the macro reading - is today calm or violent? Below 100M = quiet day. 200-500M = active. Above 1B = market-wide event (FOMC, hack, major dump).
Above 500M and the next cascade you see is far more likely to be the real one.
Long / Short ratio
2.1 / 1
Ratio of open long positions to short positions across major exchanges. Above 2.0 = longs crowded (vulnerable to a long flush — a cascade that wipes those longs). Below 0.7 = shorts crowded (vulnerable to short squeeze). 1.0-1.5 is balanced.
Cascades almost always flush the crowded side. Read this before predicting direction.
Open Interest (OI)
$74.2B
Total dollar value of open futures positions across all exchanges. Rising OI + flat price = leverage building up, cascade likely. Falling OI during a price move means positions are closing — the move is real money exiting, not new leverage.
OI spike + flat price for 24h often precedes the next major cascade.
Funding rate
+0.058% / 8h
Cost paid every 8 hours between longs and shorts. Positive = longs pay shorts (longs are crowded and paying expensive rent). Negative = shorts pay longs. Above 0.05% / 8h is hot. Above 0.1% is overheated — usually resolves with a long flush.
Funding above 0.1% combined with rising OI = textbook cascade setup.
Top liquidated coins
ETH · SOL · BTC
Ranked list of which coins took the biggest hit in the last 24h. Tells you where leverage was concentrated. If a small altcoin tops the list, the flush is local. If BTC and ETH are at top, the move is market-wide.
Single altcoin in top spot = isolated event. Top 3 are large caps = macro move.
Fear and Greed Index
28 / Fear
Sentiment proxy on a 0-100 scale. Below 30 (Fear) cascades often mark capitulation lows. Above 75 (Greed) cascades often mark distribution tops. Mid-range cascades are noise. Combine with OI and funding for context.
Cascade at Fear under 25 + OI spike = high-probability local bottom.
Section 05 · Cascade reading
When cascade = reversal, when = continuation
The single most useful skill with liquidation alerts is reading whether a cascade marks the end of a move or the beginning. Two simple cases cover most of it.
Reversal signal
Cascade at major level + volume taper
Long cascade hits at known support. Within 5-15 minutes liquidation volume drops sharply and price stops bleeding. The forced sellers are gone and fresh buyers step in. Same pattern in reverse for short cascades at resistance. Best counter-trend trade entry on the chart.
Continuation signal
Cascade in mid-range + volume holds
Cascade hits in the middle of a range, not at any meaningful level. Volume stays elevated for 30+ minutes after the cascade. Each new liquidation triggers the next. Do not counter-trade - the cascade was the start, not the end. Wait for it to exhaust at a real level.
Combine with other alert types for confirmation. Long cascade + whale outflow from exchanges = capitulation bottom. Pump alert exhaustion + short cascade = squeeze finished, expect retrace. Full breakdown of these combos in our alert comparison guide.
Live feed
Cross-check the 6 metrics in real time and catch the next cascade as it fires.