The time angle on liquidation
Most liquidation tools answer a static question: at what price do I get liquidated? This one answers the dynamic one — how long have I got? Two forces move a leveraged perp toward its liquidation price while you hold it: funding fees quietly deducted from your margin every 8 hours, and any adverse price drift. Enter your position and this calculator estimates the days until each one reaches liquidation, then shows the sooner of the two as your real countdown. Pair it with your static BTC liquidation price, the raw funding cost per hold, and your liquidation buffer.
How funding quietly liquidates perps
A perpetual future never expires, so the exchange uses a funding payment — usually every 8 hours — to tether its price to spot. When your side is crowded, you pay funding; that payment is deducted straight from your margin balance. Nothing dramatic happens on any single settlement. A 0.01% rate on $2,000 of notional is just $0.20. But it repeats three times a day, and it does not care which way the price moves.
Here is the trap: every funding deduction lowers your available margin, and your liquidation point is a function of available margin. So even with the price pinned exactly at your entry, your effective distance to liquidation shrinks a little every 8 hours. On high leverage the notional is large relative to your margin, so the funding charge is large relative to your buffer — and a thin buffer can be drained to the maintenance level in a matter of days. That is a funding-driven liquidation: the market never went against you, the clock did.
The runway math is simple. Your usable buffer is your margin minus the maintenance requirement (notional × maintenance%). Divide that buffer by the funding you pay per day and you get the number of days funding alone needs to finish you. If your funding rate is negative — you are on the side that receives funding — there is no bleed at all and the funding runway is effectively infinite. Add an adverse price drift and a second, often faster, clock starts: the percent distance from entry to your liquidation price divided by the drift per day. Whichever clock runs out first is your real countdown, which is exactly what the tool reports above.
None of this replaces watching the market. It is an approximation that ignores compounding, trading fees, and the mark-price mechanics real engines use. But it reframes leverage honestly: a position is not only a bet on direction, it is a meter running against your margin. Learn the mechanics properly in our free trading academy.
How to use this calculator
- Enter your entry price, leverage, and the margin (collateral) backing the position.
- Set the maintenance margin % (0.5% is a common default; check your tier).
- Enter the current funding rate per 8h — negative if you are the side receiving funding.
- Optionally add an adverse price drift per day to model the price slowly moving against you.
- Read the effective countdown: the sooner of the funding-only runway and the price-drift runway.
Frequently asked questions
How long until my position gets liquidated?
If the price stays flat, the only thing moving you toward liquidation is funding. Divide your usable margin buffer (margin minus the maintenance requirement) by the funding you pay per day to get the runway in days. If you also expect the price to drift against you, the position dies sooner: divide the percent distance to your liquidation price by the adverse drift per day. The countdown is whichever of the two comes first.
Does funding actually cause liquidation?
Yes, indirectly. Funding payments are deducted from your margin balance. Every deduction lowers your available balance, which pulls your effective liquidation point closer even if the market price never moves. On a crowded, high-funding side with high leverage, funding alone can drain a thin margin buffer to the maintenance level in days and trigger liquidation.
How do I avoid funding bleed?
Hold on the side that receives funding rather than pays it, keep leverage low so the notional (and therefore the funding charge) is small relative to your margin, close before funding timestamps if you are only scalping, and add margin or take profit before a multi-day hold eats your buffer. Checking the current funding rate before holding overnight is the single most useful habit. See the raw cost on our funding fee calculator.
New to this? Start with our free trading academy — every lesson links to a calculator.
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