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Bitcoin Liquidity Heatmap
Many traders buy or sell Bitcoin with borrowed money. The map shows the prices where their positions pile up: when the price reaches one of these zones, the positions close automatically, and that often pushes the price on quickly.
- What is a liquidation?
Whoever trades with borrowed money (with leverage) has only a small cushion. If the price moves too far against them, the exchange closes their position by force so the borrowed money is not lost.
- Long zones (green, below the price)
Traders betting on a rising price sit here. If the price falls this far, their positions have to be sold. Those sales push the price down even further.
- Short zones (red, above the price)
Traders betting on a falling price sit here. If the price rises this far, they have to buy bitcoin back. Those purchases drive the price up even further.
Where the positions sit
The last seven days, hour by hour: time from left to right, the price from bottom to top. The brighter a spot glows, the more positions would be closed there. The line is the price; on the right you see where the zones sit now.
- Short positions (closed when the price rises)
- Long positions (closed when the price falls)
- Price
As of . The map is recalculated every minute and keeps moving on this page by itself: the current hour on the right grows as it trades.
How to read the map
- Bright zones act like magnets
Where many positions are bundled, it pays for large market players to push the price there. So prices often run into such zones.
- When a zone is reached, it often goes fast
Every forced close is a sale (longs) or a purchase (shorts) at the market price. That shoves the price on to the next zone: a chain reaction you see as long candles. Afterwards the zone is gone.
- A picture of the situation, not a forecast
The map shows where things can get tight, not where the price is going. For long-term savers it mainly explains why Bitcoin sometimes jumps several percent within minutes.
The market's mood also shows how much greed, and so leverage, is in play. Fear & Greed →
Estimated from the public data of OKX, one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges: hourly prices and open positions of the BTC-USDT perpetual. When open positions grow, we spread the new ones over the usual leverages (5× to 100×) and work out their liquidation prices. Methodology →