There’s something many traders overlook during a sharp drop: the price doesn’t always fall simply because there are more sellers.
Sometimes it falls because thousands of leveraged positions start disappearing at the same time.
And that can accelerate the move dramatically.
🔎 What is happening right now?
The market recorded approximately $1.57 billion in liquidations over 24 hours, according to derivatives tracking data from November 15.
Bitcoin accounted for around $694 million of those liquidations.
But there’s another interesting data point: in a snapshot of Binance Futures on this day, approximately 73.5% of BTC accounts were positioned LONG.
This doesn’t mean that 73.5% of the capital is invested in long positions, but it does show a significant concentration of traders betting on prices rising.
📉 Why does this matter so much?
Imagine that Bitcoin starts to fall and many traders have LONG positions with 10x or 20x leverage.
When the price reaches the liquidation level, the exchange automatically closes those positions.
To do this, orders are executed that can increase selling pressure even further.
The result can be a chain reaction:
1. BTC starts to fall.
2. LONG positions are liquidated.
3. The liquidations create more selling pressure.
4. The price falls even further.
5. More liquidations are triggered.
This is known as a liquidation cascade.
⚠️ What should a trader watch now?
There are three particularly important indicators:
• Open Interest (OI): if it falls while Bitcoin loses value, it may indicate that leverage is being removed from the market.
• Funding Rate: shows which side is paying to maintain its positions. A positive funding rate indicates a predominance of LONG positions in terms of funding, though it doesn’t guarantee future direction.
• Long/Short Ratio: helps identify whether too many participants are concentrated on the same side of the market.
🎯 Two scenarios worth watching
SCENARIO 1 — Downward pressure continues
If BTC tries to recover, but buying volume is weak and the market continues to show a bearish structure, it could just be a temporary bounce.
SCENARIO 2 — A recovery begins
If the price recovers important levels, buying volume increases, and the market manages to absorb the selling, a recovery move could catch those still betting on a decline by surprise.
A short squeeze is also possible: when short sellers get trapped and their liquidations drive the price higher.
💡 The most important lesson:
It’s not enough to know whether there are more buyers or sellers. You also need to understand how many are using leverage, where they could be liquidated, and what happens when those positions disappear.
Sometimes, the best trading opportunity doesn’t appear when the market seems most bullish or bearish, but when a large share of participants are positioned the same way.
And now the question:
Do you think we’re seeing leveraged positions being flushed out before a Bitcoin recovery, or is more downside pressure still ahead?
Are you looking to go LONG, SHORT, or would you rather wait for confirmation?
Derivatives data: Liqwall and Binance Futures, accessed on 15/11/2026. The LONG/SHORT account percentages do not represent the distribution of capital. Educational content; not financial advice.
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