Forced Liquidation

BitMart Futures is a futures trading market, specifically a market for perpetual swaps, offered per the Terms and Conditions for BitMart Futures Market. 
Below is the [forced liquidation guide] for BitMart Futures:

At present, a perpetual swap supports leverage up to 200 times. In order to ensure the continuity of position, the trader must hold a margin of a certain proportion of position value, also known as maintenance margin. When the position margin of the trader is lower than the maintenance margin, the trader’s position will be closed and the maintenance margin will be lost at the same time. Such a process is known as forced liquidation, also known as close-out.

Only when the reasonable marking price reaches forced liquidation price will forced liquidation be triggered. The system will calculate the forced liquidation price with existing positions based on the leverage used by the trader, average position-opening price and margin maintenance ratio.

Calculation

The perpetual swap uses a reasonable price marking method to avoid forced liquidation due to a lack of liquidity or manipulation of the market. The calculation method of forced liquidation is attached.

1. Normal perpetual swap under independent margin condition:

• Long positions Lp=[Hp*Vol*S - (IM-MM)]/[(1-R)*VOL*S]

• Short positions Lp=[Hp*Vol*S +(IM-MM)]/[(1+R)*VOL*S]

2. Normal perpetual swap under cross margin condition:

• Long positions Lp=[Hp*Vol*S - (available balance +IM-MM)]/[(1-R)*VOL*S]

• Short positions Lp=[Hp*Vol*S +( available balance +IM-MM)]/[(1+R)*VOL*S]

LP: forced liquidation price; Hp: average price of held position; Vol: position volume (pcs); S: face value of the perpetual swap;

IM: initial margin; MM: maintenance margin; R: taker fee rate.

Scenario 1: Long (Bullish)

Opening the Position

You believe the price of BTC will rise, so you open a 100x leveraged long position at a price of 50,000 USDT, using 100 USDT as margin. The total position value is 10,000 USDT (0.2 BTC).

Estimated Liquidation Price

Based on the simplified long liquidation price formula (for illustrative purposes):

Estimated Liquidation Price = Entry Price × (1 – Margin Rate + Maintenance Margin Rate)

Margin Rate ≈ 1 / Leverage = 1 / 100 = 1%

Calculation:

Estimated Liquidation Price = 50,000 × (1 – 1% + 0.5%) = 50,000 × 99.5% = 49,750 USDT

This means that if the BTC price falls to 49,750 USDT, your long position will be forcibly liquidated.

How Liquidation Is Triggered

If the price moves up as expected, all is well. But if the market turns against you immediately after opening, and the BTC price drops to 49,750 USDT, liquidation will be triggered.

Here is the step-by-step breakdown:

1. You open the position at 50,000 USDT, and then the price begins to fall.
2. When the price reaches 49,750 USDT, your unrealized loss is (50,000 – 49,750) × 0.2 BTC = 50 USDT.
3. At this point, your account equity (the initial 100 USDT margin minus the 50 USDT loss) is only 50 USDT.
4. The maintenance margin required = Position Value × 0.5% = (49,750 × 0.2) × 0.5% = 49.75 USDT.
5. Your account equity (50 USDT) is now extremely close to the maintenance margin (49.75 USDT), and the margin ratio has dropped to the critical 0.5% threshold. The system will trigger forced liquidation and take over your position to close it.

 

Scenario 2: Short (Bearish)

Opening the Position

You believe the price of BTC will fall, so you open a 100x leveraged short position at a price of 50,000 USDT, using 100 USDT as margin. The total position value is also 10,000 USDT (0.2 BTC).

Estimated Liquidation Price

Based on the simplified short liquidation price formula:

Estimated Liquidation Price = Entry Price × (1 + Margin Rate – Maintenance Margin Rate)

Calculation:

Estimated Liquidation Price = 50,000 × (1 + 1% – 0.5%) = 50,000 × 100.5% = 50,250 USDT

This means that if the BTC price rises to 50,250 USDT, your short position will be forcibly liquidated.

How Liquidation Is Triggered

If the market moves against you after opening and the BTC price climbs to 50,250 USDT, liquidation will occur.

Here is the step-by-step breakdown:

1. You open the position at 50,000 USDT, and then the price begins to rise.
2. When the price reaches 50,250 USDT, your unrealized loss is (50,250 – 50,000) × 0.2 BTC = 50 USDT.
3. Now, your account equity (the initial 100 USDT margin minus the 50 USDT loss) is only 50 USDT.
4. The maintenance margin required = Position Value × 0.5% = (50,250 × 0.2) × 0.5% = 50.25 USDT.
5. Your account equity (50 USDT) is no longer sufficient to cover the maintenance margin (50.25 USDT). The margin ratio has fallen below the 0.5% requirement, and forced liquidation is therefore triggered.

Reduction of Forced Liquidation Event

The perpetual swap uses a reasonable marking price instead of the latest market price as a forced liquidation price.

At the same time, the risk limit also requires a higher margin level for larger positions so that forced liquidation engines can use more margins to close large positions effectively, otherwise, these positions are difficult to be liquidated safely. Large positions will be gradually liquidated forcibly under a safe situation.

In order to avoid or reduce the occurrence of a forced liquidation event, traders can adopt the following ways:

1. Adding margin

You can make forced liquidation price far away from reasonable marking price by adding position margin (in case of independent margin) or increase account balance (in case of cross margin).

2. Stop-Loss

You can set cross order at any price between forced liquidation price and average position-opening price to avoid forced liquidation.

 In the setting process, you need to be clear that what triggers forced liquidation event is a reasonable marking price while the default trigger price type of cross order is the latest market price. You need to select appropriate trigger price type in the settings of cross order to avoid the circumstance that forced liquidation event has occurred but no timely stop-loss as the latest market price has not reached trigger price.

Forced Liquidation Process

If forced liquidation is triggered, the system will cancel all untraded orders of the perpetual swap to release margin and maintain position. The orders of other perpetual swaps will not be affected. BitMart applies a partially forced liquidation mechanism. The mechanism will automatically try to reduce the requirements of maintenance margin to avoid that all positions are liquidated forcibly.

• User with Minimum Risk Limit

The system will cancel all untraded orders of the future.

If the requirement of maintenance margin is still not met at such time, the position will be taken over by forced liquidation engine at bankruptcy price.

• User with High-Risk Limit

BitMart will try to reduce the risk limit of the user in the following ways to reduce margin requirements:

1. Cancel untraded orders but keep the existing positions to reduce the risk limit of the user.

2. Submit FillOrKill (Fill or Kill) order the value of which is equal to the difference between the current position value and the risk limit value compliance with the current margin requirements so as to avoid further forced liquidation.

3. If the position is still under forced liquidation status, all positions will be taken over by forced liquidation engine at bankruptcy price.

For more information about the Risk Limit, please refer to Margin.

*The above liquidation rules apply to both futures trading and copy trading.