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 $727K. 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, $11.92, from a snapshot 2 minutes old. Two different ages, so neither is allowed to stand for the other.

$1.3Mmodelled notional price traded through inside this window

74.65%of modelled notional sits outside the drawn price range

$9.83 – $14.85the 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, $15.62M	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	16.667% 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	Fitted to the traded range, $9.83–$14.85, plus headroom. 74.65% 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×.

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%	$1.41M	−40.0%

Where the model puts the biggest clusters

Price levels still carrying modelled notional at the right-hand edge of the chart, largest first — $2.79M 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
$15.07	+25.16%	shorts	$726,728	4.65%
$15.11	+25.50%	shorts	$386,870	2.48%
$14.62	+21.47%	shorts	$383,590	2.46%
$14.94	+24.15%	shorts	$262,329	1.68%
$15.03	+24.83%	shorts	$221,468	1.42%
$15.15	+25.83%	shorts	$216,747	1.39%
$15.23	+26.50%	shorts	$168,852	1.08%
$14.58	+21.13%	shorts	$162,966	1.04%
$14.46	+20.13%	shorts	$134,932	0.86%
$15.19	+26.17%	shorts	$130,141	0.83%

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
3× · max	33.33%	$9.535	−20.00%	$13.621	+14.29%	34.29%
2×	50.00%	$7.151	−40.00%	$15.324	+28.57%	68.57%

Where VVV's margin tiers step down

Maintenance margin is set by the tier the notional falls in.

Tier	Notional from	Max leverage	Maintenance margin
1 · charted	$0	3×	16.667%

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 → · VVV funding and margin tiers →