How often does Bitcoin move enough in one day to liquidate a 10x trade?

From 1 January 2021 to 12 October 2026, Bitcoin fell at least 9.5% from its daily open on 40 of the 2,111 days, enough to liquidate a 10x long opened at that open (0.5% maintenance margin). Ethereum did so on 89 of them. Moves spread over several days liquidate trades too, so these counts are a floor.

Why does the number of open positions matter?

Crypto coins tend to fall together. If several leveraged positions point the same way, one sharp move can liquidate all of them at once, so the account loses the margin of every position on the same day.

Am I about to get wiped out? Crypto leverage risk check

How often has that happened? Checked against every day since 2021

Days from 1 January 2021 to 12 October 2026 when the price moved far enough within a single day to liquidate a position opened at that day's open (0.5% maintenance margin):

Leverage	Move that liquidates	Bitcoin long (days)	Bitcoin short (days)	Ethereum long (days)	Ethereum short (days)
5×	19.5%	3	1	14	7
10×	9.5%	40	37	89	74
20×	4.5%	256	246	428	377
50×	1.5%	1,032	1,029	1,238	1,256

Out of 2,111 days. Daily prices: Binance spot (BTCUSDT, ETHUSDT), UTC days; exchanges liquidate on their own mark price. These counts are a floor: falls spread over several days liquidate trades too, and smaller coins usually move more than Bitcoin and Ethereum.

How the check works

Move that liquidates: about 1 ÷ leverage − maintenance margin, for isolated margin before fees.
One bad day (worst case): coins tend to fall together, so a move that liquidates one same-direction position can liquidate all of them. The worst case costs margin per trade × positions open.
Risk grade, by what the worst one-day case costs the account: Low under 5% · Elevated 5% to under 25% · High 25% to under 50% · Severe 50% or more. The grade is Low only if the liquidating move never happened in the history at all, in a single day or spread over several.
Cross margin can cost more: on cross margin the whole account backs every position. Liquidation comes later, but when it comes it can take far more than one position's margin.

A loss needs a bigger gain to recover: losing 30% needs +43% to get back. Try any figure in the drawdown recovery calculator, or see one trade's exact number in the liquidation price calculator.

Why we don't trade like this

CriptoFocus is built the other way round: its worst drop is designed to stay inside 15%, and every closed trade and the worst drop are published on the live record. Why that matters: judge a trader by their worst month, not their best, or see the plain answers.

For information only, not financial advice. Past price moves don't predict future ones. Leveraged trading can lose you all of your margin very quickly.