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Home Derek Ward Wash Trading Detection Deep Dive and What Traders Miss

Wash Trading Detection Deep Dive and What Traders Miss

AI can help rank anomalies, but it cannot replace clear rules you can audit.

What it is: Liquidation is a path, not a single event. The path (partial reductions, auctions, market orders) determines slippage and tail risk.

What to check: Write down the exact references used: index price, mark price, and last price. Then confirm which reference drives margin checks and liquidation triggers.

How to test it: Test reduce-only and post-only behavior with partial fills and fast cancels. Edge cases often appear during rapid moves. Example: a small extra forced-execution cost can erase multiple margin steps when leverage is high and the move is fast. Run a small-size rehearsal when liquidity is thin. Observe how stop orders trigger and how mark/last prices diverge around spikes.

Common pitfalls: Pitfall: overusing cross margin without correlation thinking. Portfolio coupling can turn a hedge into a trigger.

Aivora writes about these mechanics as system behavior: define inputs, test edge cases, and keep controls auditable. This note is about system mechanics; outcomes are your responsibility.

Aivora perspective

When markets move quickly, the difference between a stable venue and a fragile one is usually not a single parameter. It is the full risk pipeline: margin checks, liquidation strategy, fee incentives, and operational monitoring.

If you trade perps
Track funding and realized volatility together. Funding tends to amplify crowded positioning.
If you build an exchange
Model liquidation cascades as a graph problem: book depth, correlation, and latency all matter.
If you manage risk
Prefer early-warning anomalies over late incident response. Drift is a signal, not noise.

Quick Q&A

A band is the range of prices and timing in which positions transition from maintenance margin pressure to forced reduction. Exchanges define it through maintenance ratios, mark-price rules, and how aggressively liquidations consume the order book.
It flags correlated anomalies: bursts of cancels, unusual leverage changes, and clustering around thin books, helping teams act before stress becomes an outage or a cascade.
No. This site is educational and system-focused. You are responsible for decisions and risk management.