Liquidation map

Where liquidation levels would sit if positions were opened the way the assumptions below describe — and, the part that matters, where price has already cleared them. The dark corridor the price path carves through the field is not empty space; it is the levels the market has already taken out. This is a model, and it is labelled as one inside the picture, not only underneath it.

Modelled notional standing at a price, at a moment. Colour tops out at the busiest 0.5% of the map so one dominant cluster cannot drag everything else to the floor; the most crowded spot holds $717K. A band ends where price trades through it — drawn in white, both as scars on the field and as the strip beneath — or fades out in four steps as the positions behind it age past the 14-day position life. Hover any point for the value band it sits in.

Hourly candles to 17:00 UTC, refreshed every 2 hours and drawn here in 4-hour steps. The dashed line is the live mark, $43.72, from a snapshot 4 minutes old. Two different ages, so neither is allowed to stand for the other.

$4.2Mmodelled notional price traded through inside this window

56.12%of modelled notional sits outside the drawn price range

$43.59 – $48.25the range that actually traded in this window

This surface is a model, and the assumptions below drive it. No venue publishes the distribution of open positions by leverage and entry price, so nobody can observe this — not us, and not anyone shipping a similar picture. Change the leverage mix in the form above and the bands move: that is the honest version of being handed someone else's Model 1, 2 and 3. What is not modelled is the price path drawn over the field, and the claim the picture actually supports is a checkable one — that price traded through where the model puts levels. See it happen on 5 February 2026 →

The assumptions, in full

#	Assumption	Value used	Observed or assumed
1	Total notional modelled	Equal to current open interest, $10.25M	observed
2	When positions were opened	Spread over the bars of the window in proportion to each bar's traded volume	observed
3	Leverage mix	Balanced — Weight spread across the range, tilted slightly to the middle. A deliberately unopinionated default.	assumed
4	Direction	Half long, half short at every leverage	assumed
5	How long a position stays open	A bounded life of 14 days, decaying in four tranches. Removed earlier if price trades through its level.	assumed
6	Maintenance margin	5.000% at tier 1, from the published table	observed
7	Positions before the window opens	84 bars before the chart starts are modelled off-screen, so the first drawn column already holds a full position-life window of positions	assumed
8	Drawn price range	The traded range was quieter than the ±8% minimum, so the minimum set the axis — not the traded range. 56.12% of modelled notional liquidates further away than this and is not drawn.	observed

Row 8 is the one most worth reading twice. Tying the axis to what actually traded is what gives the price path presence — the previous version spanned a third of the price to accommodate 2× levels half a market away, and flattened real movement into a squiggle. A minimum of ±8% stops a very quiet window from zooming into noise, and in a quiet window it is that minimum rather than the traded range that sets the axis. Either way the cost is that low-leverage levels fall off the picture. Here that is 2×, 5× and 10×.

Leverage mix used: Balanced

The exact weight vector behind the picture. Every other profile is one form submission away.

Leverage	Share of notional	Modelled notional	Long liquidation, % from mark
2×	9.00%	$922,365	−47.4%
5×	19.00%	$1.95M	−15.8%
10×	27.00%	$2.77M	−5.3%

Where the model puts the biggest clusters

Price levels still carrying modelled notional at the right-hand edge of the chart, largest first — $2.62M across the ten listed. These are the numbers the bright bands stand for.

Price	Distance from mark	Side closed	Modelled notional	Share of open interest
$43.06	-1.94%	longs	$379,289	3.70%
$47.63	+8.46%	shorts	$356,837	3.48%
$42.76	-2.62%	longs	$336,034	3.28%
$47.28	+7.67%	shorts	$336,034	3.28%
$42.86	-2.39%	longs	$328,269	3.20%
$47.43	+8.01%	shorts	$312,260	3.05%
$42.81	-2.51%	longs	$155,705	1.52%
$47.68	+8.57%	shorts	$147,238	1.44%
$43.11	-1.83%	longs	$146,406	1.43%
$47.13	+7.33%	shorts	$126,603	1.24%

How far price can move before each leverage liquidates — derived, not modelled

No assumptions here. Given the tier table and a mark these prices are arithmetic: the upper cap is where a short is closed, the lower cap where a long is closed.

Leverage	Initial margin	Long liquidation	Move down	Short liquidation	Move up	Corridor width
10× · max	10.00%	$41.414	−5.26%	$45.797	+4.76%	10.03%
8×	12.50%	$40.264	−7.89%	$46.838	+7.14%	15.04%
6×	16.67%	$38.346	−12.28%	$48.572	+11.11%	23.39%
5×	20.00%	$36.813	−15.79%	$49.960	+14.29%	30.08%
4×	25.00%	$34.512	−21.05%	$52.042	+19.05%	40.10%
3×	33.33%	$30.677	−29.82%	$55.511	+26.98%	56.81%

Where LTC's margin tiers step down

Maintenance margin is set by the tier the notional falls in. Above $20.00M the corridor widens, because maintenance margin rises to 10.000%.

Tier	Notional from	Max leverage	Maintenance margin
1 · charted	$0	10×	5.000%
2	$20.00M	5×	10.000%

What is deliberately absent

No liquidation totals and no cascade tracker. Those need an event feed, and every available one is throttled — Binance publishes at most one liquidation per symbol per second, so a sum over it understates by an unknown factor, worst exactly when the number is most quoted. The full reasoning →

The 5 February sweep, on real candles → · Leverage survival — nothing modelled → · LTC funding and margin tiers →