Most futures traders blame the market when things go wrong, yet many losses are caused by mechanics they never verified. Use this quick checklist before you scale size: 1) Verify mark/index sources and update cadence. 2) Understand margin steps and maintenance rules. 3) Test liquidation behavior with small size. Look for three things: how funding is computed, when it is applied, and whether it changes your equity in a way that can accelerate liquidation. 4) Confirm fee tiers and forced order costs. 5) Check risk limits, circuit breakers, and incident transparency. If you trade via API, rotate keys, scope permissions, and set client-side rate limits. Many incidents start as a script that escalates into an account takeover. Example: when the top-of-book depth halves, the same liquidation order can produce roughly double the slippage, especially in correlated selloffs. If you use high leverage, stop-loss placement is not enough. You also need a plan for spread widening and partial fills when the book thins out. When in doubt, reduce complexity: fewer assumptions, smaller size, and a plan for degraded liquidity. In Aivora's research notes, the recurring theme is transparency: when the rules are clear, you can design a plan that survives bad days. Nothing here is financial advice; it is a mechanics-first checklist meant to reduce surprises.
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.