Liquidation Map in Secret Terminal: How to Enable and Read It

The liquidation map in Secret Terminal shows on the chart the estimated price levels where other traders' leveraged positions may be forcibly closed. The levels are built as an estimate from open interest and typical leverage, not from exchange data about stops. The map helps you see where the "fuel" for a sharp move has built up, but it does not tell you whether price will go there.

Below is only the product side: what you see on the map in the terminal, how to enable it, how to read the zones, and how to use the liquidation map together with the order book and the tape. Liquidation theory, formulas, cascades, and a review of third-party services are covered in the article Crypto Liquidation Map: How Futures Liquidation Works and How to Use It.

What the Liquidation Map Shows and Why It Sits Inside the Terminal

Liquidation on futures happens when a loss eats through the collateral behind a leveraged position and the exchange closes it forcibly with a market order. One such order goes unnoticed by the market. But when the liquidation prices of hundreds of positions fall into a narrow range, their closing hits the market at once and accelerates the move. The liquidation map shows where such ranges are estimated to sit right now.

No exchange publishes the liquidation prices of other traders' positions. So the map calculates them itself from open interest, meaning the volume of open positions, and from typical leverage. In Secret Terminal the module is called Binance PERP Liquidations and is built from the open interest of Binance perpetual futures for four leverage tiers: x5, x10, x25, and x50. If open interest grew noticeably on a candle, new positions were opened at that price, and for each tier you can calculate where they will be closed forcibly. A 50x position runs into liquidation roughly 2% from entry, 25x at 4%, 10x at 10%, 5x at 20%, adjusted for the exchange's maintenance margin. Every level on the map is an estimate, not a fact.

Why keep this estimate inside the terminal. A beginner usually looks at the map on an aggregator site, then switches to the terminal, and the picture changes in the meantime. In Secret Terminal, the liquidation map is displayed only on the chart, on the same price scale as the candles, while the order book and the tape are open in neighboring windows. The estimated level and the live orders are visible at the same time, and that is the main condition for reading the map without guesswork.

Liquidation Map vs. Density Map: What Is the Difference

Both can end up on the chart as horizontal levels near price, and this is where beginners get confused most often. A density in the order book is a real large limit order that is sitting there right now. Secret Terminal shows a timer next to it, how long the order has held at that level, and large densities can be duplicated on the chart. The density map collects exactly these orders.

The liquidation map has nothing to do with limit orders. These are estimated levels where positions may be closed forcibly. Such orders do not exist in the book yet. They will appear only when price reaches the level, and they will be market orders. A trader can pull a density in a second, and the timer shows it. A liquidation cluster "melts" differently. Position holders add margin or close on their own, and the zone shifts or disappears without any price movement.

The rule is simple. A density answers the question of who is standing in price's way. A liquidation cluster answers the question of what may catch fire once that way is cleared. For beginners, the liquidation map is useful above all as a reminder of where a move may accelerate more than usual.

How to Enable the Liquidation Map in Secret Terminal

The whole path from installation to the first levels on the chart takes a few minutes.

• Download the terminal from the official site secret-terminal.com and install it. The main build is for Windows 64-bit, with builds for Windows 32-bit and macOS also available.
• Connect an exchange. Open "Settings", then "Trading Connections", select the exchange, paste the API Key and Secret Key from your exchange account, and click "Save". In the "Accounts" section, a green indicator should light up next to the account.
• Open the chart of a Binance futures pair, for example BTCUSDT, and place the order book of the same pair next to it. The map applies to the perpetual futures market. There is no leverage or liquidation on spot, so the map makes no sense for a spot pair.
• Click the L icon in the top right corner of the chart window. When the map is on, the icon is highlighted green and dashed horizontal levels appear on the chart above and below price. Clicking again turns the map off, and the settings are kept.
• Run a first check. Hover over any line, and the Hover tooltip will show the level's data. Then open the map settings, the Binance PERP Liquidations window, and make sure all four leverage tiers are checked. If there seem to be too many lines, do not touch Sensitivity right away; first spend a day watching how price approaches the clusters.

Where It Is Located and Which Display Settings Are Available

All parameters are gathered in the Binance PERP Liquidations window. The Defaults button restores the original values, Apply saves the changes. Below are the parameters as the interface names them, with their default values.

• OI period, default Auto. The interval over which the change in open interest is taken; Auto adjusts it to the chart timeframe.
• Analysis window, 96. How many recent candles the module looks through. On the hourly chart that is four days, on the 15-minute chart one day.
• Sensitivity, 1.5. The threshold from which an increase in open interest produces a level. The lower the value, the more lines.
• Maximum levels, 240. The upper limit of lines on the chart.
• Minimum amount, USDT, default 0. A filter by the level's estimated volume; zero shows everything. On BTCUSDT a value of 1,000,000 clears the chart noticeably, leaving only the large levels.
• Level transparency, 0, and History transparency, 72. Current lines are drawn bright, those already passed by price are noticeably paler.
• Checkboxes x5, x10, x25, x50. Which leverage tiers take part in the calculation, all four by default.
• Historical levels. Whether to show lines that price has already passed.
• Hover tooltip. A card under the cursor with the level's price, the leverage and side of the position, the estimated volume in USDT, and the time the level appeared.

Leave the defaults in place for the first few weeks. A tweaked Sensitivity or Minimum amount can easily hide the very levels that mattered. The only thing worth changing right away is the leverage checkboxes, for example leaving a scalper on minute charts with only x25 and x50.

Which Exchanges and Pairs Are Supported

The map is built from Binance perpetual futures data, and the module is named accordingly, Binance PERP Liquidations. The examples in this article use BTCUSDT, the most liquid pair with the largest open interest. The terminal itself connects to thirteen exchanges: Binance, Bybit, OKX, WhiteBIT, MEXC, Kraken, Gate.io, BingX, Bitget, Hyperliquid, Aster, BloFin, and CoinW. The easiest way to check whether the map is available for the pair you need is in practice: open its futures chart and click the L icon.

A single-exchange map shows only that exchange's clients' positions. If you trade the same coin on another venue, the Binance levels remain a reference for the market as a whole, but the way they play out in your order book may look different. It is better to start with liquid pairs such as BTCUSDT and ETHUSDT. Low-liquidity altcoins have little open interest, and the map there looks like noise.

How to Read the Map: Cluster Zones, Intensity, and Distance to Price

Each level is a dashed horizontal line. It starts at the candle where the module recorded an increase in open interest and extends to the right up to the current moment. The start of the line shows when the positions were opened, and its price shows where they will be closed forcibly. Lines for different leverage tiers differ in color. Levels need to be read by three parameters at once.

Side. Lines below the current price are estimated long liquidations. If price drops there, positions will close with market sells and add pressure downward. Lines above price are short liquidations, and their closing produces market buys. Hence the acceleration effect, since forced orders point the same way price is already moving.

Cluster density. A single line means little on its own. A cluster is several lines in a narrow range, when positions with different leverage, opened at different times, converge on one price. The more lines sit together and the larger the volume in the hover tooltip, the more noticeable the possible reaction. The amount in the tooltip is also an estimate, and the actual liquidation volume is usually smaller.

Distance. The x50 lines sit roughly 2% from the price of the candle where the level appeared, x25 at 4%, x10 at 10%, x5 at 20%. Levels close to price are almost always made of high-leverage positions, distant ones of conservative positions. A level half a percent from price concerns the next few minutes and matters for scalping. A level 8% away is context for days.

Watch asymmetry separately. If dense clusters sit only above price, the market is overloaded with shorts; if only below, with longs. This describes positioning, not a forecast. The overloaded side can stay that way for another week.

When price reaches a cluster, some positions close at market. If there are few limit orders in that stretch, the move accelerates and may hit the next cluster. After the pass, the level becomes historical and is drawn paler, and open interest usually drops.

How to Link the Map with the Order Book, the Tape, and Funding

The map answers the question "where" but stays silent on "when". The second question is covered by the tools that are open next to the chart in the terminal.

• The map. Is there a dense cluster within your working range, for example within 1–3% for intraday trading. If the nearest notable cluster is 7% away, today it is context, not a target.
• The order book. What stands between price and the cluster. A density with a long timer is a barrier price still has to get through. If densities are pulled without being filled, the barrier is gone. If the order book has little liquidity between price and the cluster, the path there can be very fast.
• The tape. As price approaches the zone, watch whether prints speed up and grow in size. Forced market orders show up in the tape as a series of large prints in one direction in a row.
• Funding and open interest. Positive funding together with rising open interest means longs are being added to the market, and the zones below price get heavier. Negative funding with rising interest points to shorts being built. The "Funding" module in the terminal shows the rate and a timer to the next payment across connected exchanges.

The order never changes. First the map shows a potential zone, then the order book answers whether there are real barriers before it, and only the tape says whether the process has started. How to read the order book, clusters, and the tape in the terminal interface is shown in a free lesson on the Secret Terminal YouTube channel.

A Hypothetical Example: Price Approaches a Liquidation Cluster

This is an example, not a signal. All figures are hypothetical and chosen for easy arithmetic.

BTCUSDT futures, price 100,000. On the map, several long liquidation lines with x25 and x50 leverage have gathered in the 97,000–97,500 range, that is 2.5–3% below price. In the order book, a large buy density sits at 97,600, and the timer shows it has held for forty minutes. Funding is slightly positive, open interest has grown over the day.

Scenario A. Price drops to 97,650. The tape shows sells hitting the density, but price goes no lower, and the sell prints fade. A few minutes later price bounces. The liquidation zone is untouched, it is still on the map and remains "fuel" for the future. There is nothing for a beginner to do here except note that the 97,600 level is being held.

Scenario B. When price reaches 97,800, the density at 97,600 is pulled without being filled, the volume disappears along with the timer. The tape speeds up, red prints get larger than they were all day. Price enters 97,500 and passes through to 97,000 within a couple of minutes, open interest falls. Below the zone the move fades, and the order book gradually fills back in.

Both scenarios started from the same map. The map said where the cluster was. The order book and the tape said which of the two scenarios you were in.

Now about the stop. Suppose a trader held a long from 99,000 and placed a stop at 97,300, that is inside the estimated zone. In scenario B it will close not at 97,300 but lower, because during a cascade there are few opposing orders and slippage grows. The alternative for a practice trade is a stop outside the zone, for example at 96,800, and a smaller position size so the loss stays within plan. With a 1,000 USDT deposit and 1% risk per trade, the acceptable loss is 10 USDT. The distance from 99,000 to 96,800 is 2,200, or about 2.22% of entry. The position notional works out to 10 / 0.0222, roughly 450 USDT, which is less than the deposit, so no leverage is needed for this trade at all. With a hypothetical taker fee of 0.05% on entry and 0.05% on exit, about another 0.45 USDT is added to the loss. Before placing a real order, check the minimum notional on your exchange, it may be higher than the calculated size.

When the Map Does Not Work and Typical Beginner Mistakes

The map is weakest in four situations. In a strong trend, price cuts through large clusters because the external flow of buyers or sellers is enough without forced orders. On low-liquidity pairs the levels are closer to random. During news and at funding payment times, positions are opened and closed en masse, and the map gets redrawn faster than you can read it. And finally, the map lags behind traders' decisions. Someone added margin, someone closed, and the level lost its meaning without price moving.

The rules for choosing leverage, position size, and a daily loss limit are collected in the article How to Avoid Liquidation on Crypto Futures: A Survival Guide. The map does not replace them.

The first days with the map are best spent without trades. Open the chart with the map, the order book next to it, and note how zones played out and how densities behaved beforehand. Then you can move on to a small real amount you are prepared to lose, taking the minimum order and fees into account. A demo account will show the mechanics, but it will not show how you make a decision when real money is on the line.

FAQ

• Does the liquidation map show where price will go?

  No. The map shows where the estimated forced-closure levels are concentrated, not the direction. Zones exist both above and below price at the same time, and the market may leave all of them untouched for weeks. Direction is confirmed by the order book, the tape, and the trend context; the map only hints at where a move may accelerate.

• How does the liquidation map differ from the density map in the order book?

  The density map shows real limit orders already sitting in the order book, while the liquidation map shows estimated levels where orders may only appear. The quick on-screen check is this. A density in Secret Terminal has a lifetime timer and is visible in the order book as volume at a level. A liquidation zone exists only on the chart, it has no timer, and nothing in the order column corresponds to it.

• Do I need to pay for the liquidation map in Secret Terminal?

  No. Secret Terminal is distributed free of charge, and the liquidation map is part of the standard chart toolset with no separate pricing or subscription. It is switched on with the same L icon right after you install the terminal and connect an exchange.

• How often is the map data updated?

  Levels are recalculated as new open interest data arrives, and the step of that data is set by the OI period parameter. In Auto mode it matches the chart timeframe, so on the hourly chart the map updates with every new hourly candle, and on the minute chart with every minute candle. For reading the map, it matters more to understand that any zone can change between two updates. Positions close, margin gets added, open interest leaves the level.

• Can I place a stop based on the liquidation map?

  Not directly, the map does not give you a stop point. It shows the opposite, meaning where a stop is better not placed, because inside an estimated zone it is easily hit by a wick. The stop is calculated from market structure and the acceptable loss, and the map only checks whether it has landed in a zone. Position size is then fitted to the distance to the stop, not the other way around.

Open the liquidation map on the chart in Secret Terminal, place the order book next to it, and watch the free lesson on analysis through the order book and clusters. That makes it easier to see how the estimated zones relate to real orders.