Liquidation Price Calculator

What a liquidation price means#

A liquidation price is the price at which the loss on a leveraged position has used up the money backing it. At that level you no longer decide — the platform closes the position automatically. On a futures or margin exchange the money backing the position is the margin you posted; on Moon.com it is the stake of the bet. Moon's terms call the level the bust price, and the app labels it Liquidation on the chart and in the positions table. The two words describe the same event: a long is liquidated below its entry price, a short above it, and the distance between the two is set by the leverage.

Leverage multiplies the exposure and shrinks the fatal move by the same factor. A $100 stake at 1000× controls $100,000 of exposure, so a 0.1% move against the position is worth $100 — the whole stake. That is why the bust sits 0.1% from the entry at 1000×, 1% at 100× and 10% at 10×. Our guide to how 1000× leverage works tables the arithmetic in full.

The formula#

The bet busts when the loss on the position equals the stake. The loss is exposure × adverse move, and exposure is stake × leverage, so the stake cancels out: the adverse move that busts you is 1 ÷ leverage of the entry price. Applied to a price, that gives two lines:

• ▸Long: bust price = entry × (1 − 1 ÷ leverage)
• ▸Short: bust price = entry × (1 + 1 ÷ leverage)
• ▸Exchange, isolated margin: replace 1 ÷ leverage with (1 ÷ leverage − maintenance margin rate)

Why an exchange liquidates before the arithmetic level#

A futures or margin exchange does not let the equity behind a position fall to zero. It sets a maintenance margin — a fraction of the notional that must remain — and closes the position when the equity reaches that floor. Under isolated margin the distance to liquidation is therefore 1 ÷ leverage minus the maintenance rate. At 100× with a 0.5% maintenance rate that is 1% − 0.5% = 0.5%: the position is closed halfway to the level the pure arithmetic suggests. If the maintenance rate is at or above 1 ÷ leverage, the position could not be opened at that leverage at all, and the calculator says so instead of printing a price.

Exchanges usually tier the maintenance rate by position size and charge a liquidation fee on top, and the liquidation fill lands wherever the order book is at that moment. The exchange mode here takes a single rate you read from your venue's schedule; it models the floor, not the fee or the fill. Moon has no maintenance margin: a bet is backed by its stake and nothing else, so the bust sits at the full 1 ÷ leverage. That is the default model of the calculator.

How Moon shows the bust price before you confirm#

On Moon you do not have to compute the level yourself. The terms of service state that the bust price is displayed before a bet is confirmed (§8.2), and while the bet runs it appears twice: as a line marked Liquidation on the chart and as its own column in the positions table, next to the entry price. This calculator is for planning a bet before you open the slip and for checking the level the platform prints against the formula.

We checked the formula on a real account#

On 22 August 2026 we funded a real Moon account and bet Ethereum at 1000× in both directions. Two of the short positions give the cleanest check. The first opened at 2,534.465 and Moon printed a bust price of 2,536.999; the formula gives 2,534.465 × 1.001 = 2,536.999. The second opened at 2,544.472 and Moon printed 2,547.017; the formula gives 2,547.016 — one tick apart. The likeliest reason is rounding: Moon displays the entry to three decimals, so its internal entry may sit up to half a tick from the printed one. Both gaps are 0.100% of the entry, which is what 1 ÷ 1000 says they should be. The screenshots are in our guide to 1000× leverage.

What this calculator does not model#

• ▸Fees. Moon charges a 1% opening fee on the stake, a holding fee every 8 hours at a rate shown in-app, a performance fee of at least 10% on realised profit, and a liquidity adjustment on close. None of them changes the bust line; all of them change what you take home.
• ▸The spread in the settlement price. Moon's terms describe a house edge as a spread inside its quoted price, separate from and in addition to the fees (§9.2). The calculator works from the entry price you type, not from Moon's quote.
• ▸Settlement at a worse price. Automatic settlement may occur at a price less favourable than the last displayed quote (§8.3), so the price at which a bust is booked can differ from the printed level.
• ▸Tracking. Moon gives no guarantee that a bet's value tracks the external market (§8.7).
• ▸Exchange details. Tiered maintenance rates, liquidation fees, funding payments and the liquidation fill are outside the single-rate exchange mode.

For the difference between a fixed-stake bet and a margin or perpetual position on an exchange — margin modes, funding, what a liquidation actually takes — read our guide to leverage trading crypto.

Frequently asked questions#