Liquidation heatmap: estimated levels vs real liquidations

A liquidation heatmap shades bands on a price chart where leveraged positions would be forced closed. It is easy to read too much into it, because the bands are not a record of anything: they are an estimate. This guide separates the two things AlertaChart shows you, estimated liquidation levels and liquidations that actually happened, explains exactly how the estimate is built and where it can be wrong. All order-flow tools are listed in the Help Center article on order flow.

What a liquidation is

On a futures exchange, a leveraged position is closed by the exchange when the collateral left in it, after profits and losses, falls below the maintenance margin the position requires. Binance's rules describe this and add that the trigger is the mark price reaching the position's liquidation price, and that the exchange first tries to cut the position with one large immediate-or-cancel order before closing it entirely.

The practical point is the direction of the forced order. A long that is liquidated is sold into the market; a short that is liquidated is bought back. When many positions share a liquidation zone, the forced orders can add to the very move that triggered them.

Estimated levels and real liquidations are different things

Keep the two apart when you read a chart. A strong band says "if the assumptions hold, positions are stacked here". A bar in the realized pane says "this was liquidated".

How AlertaChart builds the estimate

The Liquidation Heatmap works from the open interest of the exchange your perpetual chart belongs to:

1. Read open interest. It loads that exchange's open-interest history (hourly readings on charts up to 1 hour, 4-hour readings up to the 4-hour chart, daily readings above) and keeps listening for new readings.
2. Find new positions. Every rise in open interest, counted in contracts so that a falling price cannot hide it, is treated as positions opened at that moment's price. Without trade-by-trade direction, the model splits them half long, half short.
3. Assume leverage. Each batch is spread over six leverage levels with fixed weights: 10× 18%, 20× 22%, 25× 22%, 50× 18%, 75× 10% and 100× 10%. This mix is an assumption built into the product, not data from the exchange.
4. Place the levels. For each level, the liquidation price is approximated with a 0.5% maintenance margin: long entry × (1 − 1 ÷ leverage + 0.5%), short entry × (1 + 1 ÷ leverage − 0.5%).
5. Draw and remove. Each level becomes a thin band, 0.05% of the latest price tall, starting when the positions were opened. It ends at the first candle whose range reaches it, when those positions count as liquidated; otherwise it runs to the latest candle.
6. Shade. A band's strength is the dollar amount behind it. Where batches overlap, their amounts add up, and each spot is shaded once from that sum, relative to the strongest bands on screen. Stronger bands are drawn more intensely, from deep purple through blue and green towards yellow, on dark and light charts alike. So places where many batches agree stand out most, and weak levels fade into the background.

Example numbers for positions opened at 100,000 dollars: the 10× long level sits at 100,000 × (1 − 0.10 + 0.005) = 90,500; 25× at 96,500; 50× at 98,500; 100× at 99,500. The short levels mirror them above: 100,500 at 100×, 101,500 at 50× and 109,500 at 10×. High-leverage levels land within 1.5% of the entry, so the bands are thickest just above and below the prices where open interest grew fastest.

What the realized liquidations show

When you switch the heatmap on, a pane opens below the chart with the liquidations that the same exchange published (where it publishes them): the last 30 days, then live. Each candle shows the liquidated amount, short liquidations above zero and long liquidations below. For the market as a whole, Agg. Liquidations adds up Binance, Bybit and OKX in dollars or coins; Coinbase and Hyperliquid have no public liquidation feed to record, so they are not part of it.

Why the realized numbers are a minimum

Binance's liquidation stream sends at most one liquidation order per contract per second; when several happen within that second, only one is published (since a documentation change on 10 April 2026, the largest one), and in a second without liquidations nothing is sent. In a fast market many liquidations never appear in the feed, so Binance's share of any total is a lower bound. AlertaChart's Help Center states the same limit for the Agg. Liquidations panel.

Reading the heatmap

• Bands below the price are estimated long liquidations: forced selling if the price falls there. Bands above are estimated short liquidations: forced buying if the price rises there.
• A band that ends marks the candle where the price reached it. Check the realized pane at that candle: a spike there means the estimate and reality lined up; no spike suggests those positions had already closed or used less leverage than assumed.
• Intensity is relative to the strongest band on that chart. A strong band on a quiet coin can hold far less money than a faint band on BTC.
• Fresh bands depend on fresh open interest. A period of falling open interest adds no new bands; the existing ones stay until the price reaches them.

Bands are not targets. The price may stop short of a cluster, cut through it without a single liquidation, or turn after sweeping it. Read the heatmap together with open interest and funding (the open interest guide and the funding rate guide explain both).

Using the liquidation heatmap in AlertaChart, step by step

1. Open a crypto perpetual chart: its symbol ends in .P (see spot and perpetual markets). The heatmap needs a perpetual; on a spot chart it stays off.
2. Click Orderflow in the chart toolbar to open the Orderflow Toolbox.
3. Add Liquidation Heatmap. The bands appear on the price chart and the realized liquidations open in a pane below.
4. Choose a Sensitivity: Normal keeps only the stronger bands, Detailed also draws weaker ones.
5. For liquidations across exchanges, add Agg. Liquidations under Aggregated (all venues).

Open the BTC/USDT perpetual chart, then add Liquidation Heatmap from Orderflow →Pro

The order-flow tools are part of the Pro and Elite plans (compare plans). With Pro on the mobile app you can also be notified of single liquidations of 1 million dollars or more. Scripts can read realized liquidations as series, for example BYBIT:SOLUSDT.P_LIQ_LONG; see order flow data.

Settings that matter

• Sensitivity (heatmap): Normal or Detailed, in the Orderflow Toolbox under the heatmap row. It changes which bands are drawn, not how they are calculated.
• Units (Agg. Liquidations): dollars (the default) or coins.
• Long liquidations below zero (Agg. Liquidations): on by default; switch it off to draw both sides above zero.
• Venues (Agg. Liquidations): Binance, Bybit and OKX, each can be switched off from its logo or in the gear.

Common mistakes

• Treating estimated bands as positions someone has reported. They are modelled.
• Expecting the price to be drawn to the strongest band.
• Adding up realized liquidations from Binance as if the feed were complete.
• Comparing band intensity between different coins or exchanges.
• Forgetting that the heatmap reflects one exchange, the one the chart belongs to.

Method and limitations

The mechanics of liquidation follow Binance's published rules; the heatmap method is described from AlertaChart's code as of 5 October 2026. Its limits are part of the method:

• Assumed leverage and side. Real positions have their own leverage and margin; the fixed mix and the 50/50 split are simplifications.
• One maintenance margin. On Binance the maintenance margin rate rises with position size in brackets; a single 0.5% places the levels of large positions a little off.
• Opens only. Positions closed voluntarily before the price reaches them still show as bands until the price gets there.
• Limited history. Positions opened before the loaded open-interest history are missing.
• Incomplete reporting. Realized data is a lower bound where an exchange throttles its feed, and missing where it publishes none.

Related guides

• Open interest: units, venues and reading it with price
• Funding rate: who pays, when, and how to compare
• Help Center: order flow tools
• Help Center: alerts and notifications