How to read a liquidation heatmap

What this heatmap plots

TradingHub’s liquidation heatmap models possible forced-close exposure from public OI, price, volume, funding, volatility and observed liquidation inputs. It does not receive every private position’s entry, leverage or collateral. Its horizontal axis is time, its vertical axis is price, and color shows relative modeled concentration. A brighter band is an estimate, not an order waiting to execute.

The liquidation tracker instead records reported forced closes that already occurred. An order-book liquidity map shows visible resting bids and asks that may be moved or cancelled. Do not read these three datasets as interchangeable.

Why modeled zones form

The model distributes exposure across leverage and entry assumptions. Long-liquidation zones are generally below assumed entry levels; short-liquidation zones are above them. Actual liquidation boundaries depend on mark price, maintenance margin, collateral, margin mode and venue rules. Entry price divided by leverage is not an exact liquidation formula.

A concentration may matter if price reaches it and real forced closes follow. The band itself does not pull price toward it or prove a cascade will happen.

What the colors cannot tell you

Brightness is relative to the selected scale, venues, cohorts and display threshold. Under adaptive scaling, similar colors in two views need not represent the same USD amount. The map’s USD values are scenario ranges, not confirmed liquidation orders.

A zone can fade when OI contracts, price crosses its projected level, observed events consume nearby modeled exposure or assumptions decay. A dark cell means little displayed model exposure under the selected settings; it does not prove there are no positions or no risk. Missing history is not a measured zero.

One level, three different observations

Hypothetical BTC example: current price is $60,000 and a modeled long-liquidation band is at $58,200, 3% below price: $60,000 × 0.97 = $58,200. It means the model concentrates possible exposure there. It does not mean that liquidations have already occurred at $58,200.

If price later reaches that area and the tracker reports $2 million of long liquidations, those reports are separate observed events within the tracker’s coverage and time window. An order-book bid wall at $58,200 would be a third observation: resting buy orders, not forced closes. A venue can cancel those bids before they trade.

A practical reading sequence

Open the modeled map and check venue coverage, quality labels, leverage cohorts and scale. Compare any subsequent move with OI and observed events rather than treating a band as a target. The heatmap comparison explains which question each dataset answers.