A
- ADL (auto-deleveraging)
- When a liquidation cannot be closed at a price the insurance fund can absorb, the exchange closes part of the most profitable opposing positions against it instead. Traders with high profit and high leverage are first in the queue. It is rare, but it can shut a winning trade without warning.
- Live liquidations →
- Altcoin season
- A stretch when most large altcoins outperform bitcoin. It is usually measured as the share of the top coins that beat BTC over the last 90 days, with 75% or more read as altcoin season.
- Altcoin season index →
- Annualised funding (APR)
- A funding rate converted to a yearly figure so it can be compared with other yields. Multiply the rate per 8 hours by three payments a day and 365 days; 0.01% per 8 hours is about 11% a year.
- Funding fee calculator →
- Average entry price
- The size-weighted price of every fill that built a position. Adding to a loser lowers it for a long and raises it for a short, and it is the price your PnL and liquidation price are measured from.
- Average entry calculator →
B
- Basis
- The gap between a futures price and the spot price of the same asset, usually shown in basis points (1 bp is 0.01%). On a perpetual, funding keeps the gap small; on a dated future it shrinks to zero at expiry.
- live BTC -5.0 bps perp vs spot on Binance
- What is basis? →
C
- Contango and backwardation
- Contango means futures trade above spot, the usual state when traders pay up for leveraged long exposure. Backwardation is the reverse, futures below spot, and tends to show up in fearful or short-heavy markets.
- CME futures positioning →
- Correlation
- How closely two coins' returns move together, from -1 (opposite) to +1 (in lockstep). Most large altcoins sit well above 0.5 against bitcoin, so holding several of them diversifies less than it seems.
- Crypto correlation matrix →
- COT report
- The weekly Commitments of Traders report from the US CFTC, which splits open interest in regulated futures such as CME bitcoin by trader type. It shows how asset managers, leveraged funds and dealers are positioned, with a few days' delay.
- CME COT report →
- Cross margin
- A margin mode where every position in the account shares one pool of collateral. A losing trade can draw on the whole balance before it is liquidated, which delays liquidation but puts the entire account at risk.
- Liquidation price calculator →
- CVD (cumulative volume delta)
- A running total of taker buy volume minus taker sell volume. Rising CVD means aggressive buyers are hitting the ask more than sellers hit the bid; a price rise with falling CVD is a divergence worth a second look.
- What is CVD? →
D
- Delta neutral
- A position whose value does not change with small price moves, for example long spot and short the same amount of perp. Funding traders use it to collect funding payments without betting on direction.
- Funding arbitrage calculator →
F
- Funding arbitrage
- Holding opposite positions on two venues, or in spot and perp, to earn the difference in funding rates. The edge is the spread between rates; the risks are fees, basis moves and one leg being liquidated.
- Funding arbitrage screener →
- Funding interval
- How often a perpetual settles funding. Binance and Bybit mostly settle every 8 hours (some markets every 4 or 1), while Hyperliquid settles every hour, so rates are usually converted to an 8-hour equivalent before comparing.
- Funding rates by coin →
- Funding rate
- A periodic payment between longs and shorts that keeps a perpetual's price close to spot. When it is positive, longs pay shorts; when negative, shorts pay longs. The exchange only passes the money between traders.
- live BTC 0.0028% OI-weighted, per 8h · 3.1% APR
- What is the funding rate? →
H
- HIP-3
- Hyperliquid's standard that lets third parties deploy their own perpetual markets, each on a separate dex with its own oracle and open-interest caps. It is how stock, commodity and index perps trade around the clock on Hyperliquid.
- live 150 markets on 4 HIP-3 dexes
- What are HIP-3 stock perps? →
- HLP (Hyperliquidity Provider)
- Hyperliquid's community vault that makes markets and takes over liquidated positions. Depositors share its profit and loss, so it tends to earn in calm markets and can lose when one side runs hard.
- HLP vault →
I
- Index price
- A reference spot price built from several exchanges, used to calculate funding and, with the order book, the mark price. Averaging many venues makes it hard for one thin book to move it.
- What is basis? →
- Initial margin
- The collateral needed to open a position, equal to its size divided by the leverage. At 10x, a $10,000 position needs $1,000 of initial margin.
- Position size calculator →
- Insurance fund
- A pool each exchange keeps to cover liquidations that close at a worse price than the trader's margin can pay for. When it cannot cover a loss, auto-deleveraging takes over.
- Live liquidations →
- Isolated margin
- A margin mode where each position has its own fixed collateral. If it is liquidated you lose that margin and nothing more, but the position is liquidated sooner than it would be on cross margin.
- Liquidation price calculator →
K
- The gap between the price of a coin on Korean won exchanges such as Upbit and its dollar price elsewhere, after converting currencies. A wide premium signals strong local retail demand that capital controls keep from being arbitraged away.
- Kimchi premium →
L
- Leverage
- Position size divided by the margin behind it. It multiplies gains and losses alike, and it sets how far price can move against you before liquidation: roughly 1 divided by the leverage, less the maintenance margin.
- live BTC 40x maximum leverage on Hyperliquid
- Liquidation price calculator →
- Liquidation
- The forced close of a leveraged position whose margin has fallen below the maintenance level. A long liquidation is a forced sell and a short liquidation a forced buy, which is why clusters of them can speed up a move.
- live $25.75M all coins, last 8 hours · longs $14.04M, shorts $11.71M
- What are liquidations? →
- Liquidation heatmap
- A chart that estimates where leveraged positions would be liquidated, from open interest changes and typical leverage. Bright bands are price levels where many estimated liquidations sit; they are models, not order books.
- Liquidation heatmap →
- Liquidation price
- The mark price at which a position's margin drops to the maintenance level and the exchange closes it. It depends on entry price, leverage, margin mode and the venue's maintenance margin tiers.
- Liquidation price calculator →
- Long/short ratio
- The number of accounts with a net long position divided by those with a net short one. It counts people, not money: every contract still has one buyer and one seller.
- What is the long/short ratio? →
M
- Maintenance margin
- The minimum margin a position must keep to stay open, a small percentage of its size that rises in tiers for bigger positions. Drop below it and the position is liquidated.
- Liquidation price calculator →
- Maker and taker
- A maker adds a resting limit order to the book; a taker trades against one immediately. Exchanges charge takers more and sometimes pay makers a rebate, since resting orders are what make the market liquid.
- Exchanges we track →
- Mark price
- The price an exchange uses to value positions and trigger liquidations, built from the index or oracle price plus a damped premium from the order book. Using it instead of the last trade stops a single wick from liquidating everyone.
- live HYPE -2.8 bps mark 91.767 vs oracle 91.793 on Hyperliquid
- Hyperliquid markets →
O
- OI cap
- A limit on the total open interest a market can hold. Hyperliquid's HIP-3 deployers set one per market; at the cap, only orders that reduce open interest are accepted.
- live io:ANTH 83% of its $45.00M cap, the fullest HIP-3 market
- Hyperliquid stock perps →
- Open interest
- The total value of futures positions that are still open. It rises when new positions are opened and falls when they are closed or liquidated; read with price, it tells you whether a move is being built or unwound.
- live BTC $27.87B summed over every perp we track
- What is open interest? →
- Oracle price
- The external reference price an on-chain exchange pulls in, usually a median of several centralised exchanges. On Hyperliquid it anchors funding and the mark price; for HIP-3 markets the deployer runs it.
- Hyperliquid stock perps →
- Order-book depth
- How much resting size sits in the book within a set distance of the mid price, for example within 1%. More depth means a large order moves the price less.
- Order book depth →
P
- Perpetual futures (perps)
- Futures contracts with no expiry date. Funding payments, not settlement, keep their price near spot, which lets traders hold leveraged positions for as long as their margin lasts.
- live Binance largest venue by open interest: $28.79B, 34% of tracked perp OI
- Exchanges we track →
- PnL (profit and loss)
- Unrealised PnL is what an open position would make if it were closed at the mark price now. Realised PnL is what closed trades actually made, after fees and funding.
- PnL calculator →
- Predicted funding
- The funding rate the exchange expects to charge at the next settlement, calculated from the premium so far in the current interval. It moves until settlement, so treat it as a running estimate.
- Funding rates by coin →
- How far a perpetual trades above or below its index or oracle price, sampled through the funding interval. It is the main input to the funding rate: a positive premium pushes funding up.
- live HYPE -1.4 bps Hyperliquid premium, this funding hour
- Hyperliquid funding rates →
Q
- Quarterly futures
- Dated futures that expire and settle on a fixed day, often the last Friday of a quarter. With no funding, their premium over spot is the basis, which converges to zero at expiry.
- What is basis? →
S
- Short squeeze
- A fast rise driven by short sellers being forced to buy back, through stop orders or liquidations. Deeply negative funding and rising open interest are common warning signs.
- Negative funding rates →
- Slippage
- The difference between the price you expected and the average price you got. It grows with order size and shrinks with order-book depth, and it is often a bigger cost than the fee on thin markets.
- Order book depth →
T
- Taker buy and sell volume
- Trade volume split by the side of the aggressive order: a taker buy lifts the ask, a taker sell hits the bid. The net of the two is the building block of CVD.
- CVD screener →
V
- Volatility
- How much an asset's price swings, usually the standard deviation of returns, annualised. Higher volatility means wider liquidation risk for the same leverage.
- Crypto volatility →
- Volume spike
- A minute or hour when trading volume jumps to several times its recent average. Spikes often mark news, liquidation cascades or the start of a large move, so they are an early signal to look closer.
- What is a volume spike? →
W
- Whale
- A trader or wallet large enough to move a market or be watched for it. On Hyperliquid every position is public, so the biggest accounts and their liquidation prices can be tracked.
- Hyperliquid whales →