BTC perpetual futures traders on the short side were hit by 67 consecutive days of negative funding, forcing them to pay funding every eight hours while prices mostly moved sideways. That steady drain on margin built up over time. According to live data from CryptoAppsy, the pressure broke near the European trading open on May 18, when roughly $590 million in BTC short positions were liquidated.
Why identical positions were liquidated at different prices
One of the clearest takeaways from the liquidation wave was that the same trade could be closed at very different price levels depending on the exchange. The article points to exchange-specific margin rules and liquidation engines as the reason. Trade size, entry price, and leverage may match, but the risk model behind the platform still changes the liquidation threshold.
Binance, for example, sets a minimum margin requirement of 0.5% for standard BTC perpetual contracts, and that requirement increases for larger positions. Other venues apply their own thresholds and tiering systems. For highly leveraged trades, even a small difference in required margin can move the liquidation price by thousands of dollars.
Partial liquidation and full liquidation lead to different outcomes
Liquidation methods also vary. Binance and Bybit use partial liquidation, where the system starts reducing a position in pieces once margin ratios drop too far, giving the trader a chance to keep part of the position. OKX and BitMEX are listed as using full liquidation, where the entire position is closed once the trigger is hit.
The comparison in the source lists Binance at 0.5% minimum margin with partial liquidation, Bybit at 0.5% with partial liquidation, OKX at 0.4% with full liquidation, and BitMEX at 0.5% with full liquidation. In a fast market, that distinction can decide whether a trader loses the whole position or keeps a reduced remainder.
Funding caps add another layer of risk
The report also highlights funding-rate caps as a key variable. Some exchanges cap how high funding can rise in each eight-hour interval, while others allow larger moves. During a long stretch of negative funding, that difference matters. If a venue combines low margin requirements with a higher funding cap, short-side losses can compound much faster.
Anton Palovaara, founder of Leverage.Trading, said traders often focus on trading fees, liquidity, and withdrawal speed when opening leveraged positions, while the more decisive numbers sit in platform documentation: margin levels by position size, whether liquidation is partial or full, and the funding cap. The 67-day run of negative funding offered a clear example of how those hidden parameters can produce very different outcomes across exchanges.