Estimated liquidation levels across exchanges, built from open-interest changes, price action and taker flow on our own data — brighter cells mark price zones where more leveraged positions would be liquidated. These are model estimates (leverage cohorts at 10x/25x/50x/100x), not exchange-published figures; dollar values are estimated notional at risk, anchored to open interest. Updates every minute.
The heatmap maps estimated DOT liquidation levels around the current price of $0.7614, built from open-interest changes and price action across exchanges and anchored to open interest. Cluster sizes are model estimates — upper bounds, not exchange-published figures.
Polkadot's derivative market is quieter than its market-cap rank once suggested, and that changes how its heatmap reads. With moderate open interest spread over long holding periods, DOT zones are fewer but more meaningful — each visible shelf represents a real accumulation of patient leverage rather than day-trading churn.
DOT has also spent long stretches in downtrends, which breeds a specific structure: layered short clusters above price left by trend-followers pressing the move. When sentiment turns, those layers unwind in sequence — the classic short-squeeze staircase — and the map shows how much fuel remains above at each step.
Layered short liquidation levels from positions opened at successively lower prices during a downtrend. A rally burns through them in order, and each cleared layer can add forced buying to the next.
It just means little leveraged inventory currently exists — fewer positions to liquidate, so fewer zones. Structure returns whenever open interest expands again.
Support and resistance describe past price behavior; liquidation zones describe current open positions and the prices that would force them closed. They often interact, but they measure different things.