Liquidation and how to avoid it

Liquidation is the forced closing of a position when your margin can no longer support it. Knowing exactly when and how it happens on NyxGo is the best way to keep it from happening to you.

When a position is liquidated

Every open position has a maintenance margin: the minimum equity it needs to stay open. On NyxGo this is half of the initial margin at the market’s maximum leverage. On a market with a 40x maximum, for example, maintenance margin is 1.25% of the position’s value.

Your equity is your collateral plus or minus unrealized profit and loss, after any funding and fees. A liquidation happens when equity falls below maintenance margin. What counts as “your equity” depends on the margin mode:

• Cross margin: the equity of your whole cross account is measured against the maintenance margin of all your cross positions combined.
• Isolated margin: only that position’s own margin and its profit or loss count.

The exchange measures this with the mark price, not the last traded price. The mark price combines the exchange’s own order book with perp prices from major centralized exchanges. In NyxGo, it is the large price next to the market name in the market bar, and it appears in the Mark column of your Positions tab. Leverage and margin explains how these margin levels are set.

How it is carried out

On the exchange NyxGo uses, the process runs in stages:

1. Market orders to the book. When equity drops below maintenance margin, the exchange first tries to close the positions by sending market orders to the order book. If the positions are fully or partly closed and the maintenance requirement is met again, any remaining collateral stays with you.
2. Partial liquidation for large positions. For liquidatable positions larger than 100,000 USDC, only 20% of the position is sent to the book at a time, followed by a 30-second cooldown.
3. Backstop liquidation. If equity falls below two-thirds of the maintenance margin, the position is taken over by the exchange’s liquidator vault. In a backstop liquidation, the maintenance margin is not returned to you.

Either way, a liquidation happens only after much of the margin behind a position is already used up, which is why an exit you plan in advance does far better.

Cross and isolated: what’s at stake

The margin mode decides how far the damage can spread:

• Cross margin shares collateral across positions. A profitable position can hold up a losing one, and in the same way a large loss on one position draws on the collateral behind all the others, so size cross positions with your whole account in mind.
• Isolated margin limits a position to the margin assigned to it. Liquidations in an isolated position don’t affect your other isolated or cross positions. The position also gets no help from the rest of your account.

NyxGo labels every position with its leverage and mode in the Positions tab, for example “10x Cross” or “5x Iso”.

Reading your liquidation price

In the Positions tab below the chart, NyxGo shows each position’s Liq. price alongside its size, entry price, mark price, PnL (ROE), margin and net funding. The Account section under the order form shows your equity, unrealized PnL, withdrawable balance and a Margin usage bar. The bar shows how much of your equity is tied up as margin and turns amber, then red, as usage rises.

To see how leverage sets that price, take a market with a 40x maximum (1.25% maintenance margin). You open an isolated position of 100 coins at $100, a $10,000 position, and ignore fees and funding:

Position	Margin	Approximate liquidation price	Distance from entry
Long at 10x	$1,000	$91.14	−8.9%
Short at 10x	$1,000	$108.64	+8.6%
Long at 20x	$500	$96.20	−3.8%

The liquidation price is an estimate, and it moves. Funding you pay and fees reduce your margin and pull it closer. On cross margin, it also shifts when your other positions gain or lose, or when you add or withdraw collateral.

Plan ahead: Liquidation runs on the exchange’s schedule, so the best protection is set before you need it. Place your stop loss well before your Liq. price and leave a little room, because in a fast market a triggered stop can fill slightly past its level. Without a stop, you close or reduce the position yourself.

Habits that keep you away from it

None of these guarantees safety, but together they give you a much larger margin for error:

• Use less leverage. Moving from 20x to 10x in the example above more than doubles the distance to liquidation. The table in Leverage and margin shows the full range.
• Know your exit before you enter. Decide the price at which your idea is wrong, and make sure your liquidation price sits well beyond it. If liquidation comes first, the exchange closes you out before your plan does. Risk management basics shows how to size a position from that exit.
• Put the stop on the exchange. Set a stop loss from the TP / SL column of the Positions tab, or attach one with TP/SL when you enter. To have it follow the price up, a trailing stop agent keeps a stop behind your position and only moves it in your favor.
• Keep a buffer on cross margin. Spare USDC in your account raises your equity and pushes cross liquidation prices further away. Use Deposit in NyxGo’s Account section to add USDC from your wallet.
• Reduce instead of hoping. You can cut a position with a Reduce only order, or close it in full with Market close in the Positions tab, which sends a reduce-only market order. With several open positions, Close all closes them together after you confirm.
• Watch funding on long holds. Days of paying funding quietly eat into your margin. Funding rates explained shows how to estimate the cost.
• Respect fast markets. NyxGo sends market orders, including Market close, as immediate-or-cancel orders limited by your max slippage setting. If the price moves further than that before the order fills, part of it may not fill and you’ll need to send it again.

Perpetual futures are high risk, and a leveraged position can be liquidated faster than you can react. Nothing here is financial advice.

Key takeaways

• A position is liquidated when your equity falls below its maintenance margin, measured at the mark price.
• The exchange first closes positions through the order book. If equity keeps falling, a backstop liquidation keeps the maintenance margin.
• Cross margin exposes your whole cross account, while isolated margin limits the loss to that position’s margin.
• NyxGo shows each position’s estimated Liq. price and your overall Margin usage. Watch both.
• Lower leverage, a stop well before liquidation, and closing positions early are your main protections.