Liquidations: long flushes, short squeezes and cascades
A liquidation is the forced close of a leveraged position when its margin runs out. When many longs are liquidated at once the forced selling pushes price down further (a long flush); when shorts are liquidated the forced buying pushes price up (a short squeeze). SIMMENT aggregates public OKX and Bybit liquidation prints per coin and side and alerts when a five-minute cascade crosses a threshold, for example $4M on BTC.
Why cascades happen
Leveraged traders cluster their liquidation prices near obvious levels: just under a support, just above a range high. When price reaches the cluster, the exchange market-sells (or buys) the positions, which pushes price into the next cluster. That chain reaction is the cascade, and it is why the fastest candles on a crypto chart are usually liquidation-driven.
Reading the totals
Longs liquidated with price falling means downside liquidity was taken; the move can extend, but once the cluster is cleared bounces are sharp. Shorts liquidated with price rising is the mirror image. Compare the totals to the last hour and to the size of the move: a big flush on a small move suggests absorption.
How the SIMMENT desk uses liquidations
The home screen shows one-hour long and short totals for BTC and ETH. The liquidation watcher evaluates five-minute windows every 20 seconds and pushes an alert with the side, the amount and the 15-minute price move when BTC exceeds $4M, ETH $2M or SOL $1M. The Market Pulse card repeats the alert as a headline.
Quick answers
Why not Binance liquidations?
The SIMMENT server is in the US, where Binance Futures data is blocked, so it uses OKX and Bybit public streams instead.
This metric is a tile on the SIMMENT paper desk. Open a free account, get 10,000 virtual USDT and watch it on live Binance prices. Enter the desk → · iOS app
Educational content. Simulated trading only. Not financial advice. Updated 2026-09-06.