How Seismograph measures liquidations

Beta: the public trial

Seismograph is in beta: a public trial that ends on 11 November 2026. After it, a random sample of the figures recorded during the trial is checked against the chains in two ways. A separate program re-reads a random sample of liquidations from every venue and chain and compares each with the record here: that it is there, that its value is within 1% where the program can value it on its own and, on the lending markets, that its block holds the same number of liquidations. And a person counts, on the chains' block explorers, the liquidations in a random sample of transactions of every protocol.

Until the check is done, figures may still be corrected. A change to an event after it closed is shown on its page and listed under Corrections.

What is counted

A liquidation is counted when a covered venue emits its liquidation event. On lending markets the value is the collateral taken from the borrower; on GMX it is the size of the position closed. A position is one borrower in one transaction: several events in one transaction (for example, two collaterals seized) are one position.

Coverage starts on 1 Sep 2025, 00:00 UTC on every chain. Centralized exchanges and Hyperliquid are not covered yet, so in a market-wide crash these totals are a small part of all liquidations.

Prices

Every price is read on-chain at the liquidation's own block, never from a later one: Aave and Spark use their pools' oracles, Aave v4 its Spokes' oracles, Morpho the debt repaid times the market's incentive with Aave's price of the loan token, Sky the collateral's price from Aave's oracle, or Sky's own price when Aave has none, and Compound and GMX record the USD value in the event itself. A liquidation that cannot be valued (for example, a Morpho loan token that Aave's oracle does not list) is counted but not added to any total, and the pages say how many there are.

Assets

Each liquidation counts under one asset group: on lending markets the collateral taken, on GMX the market's index token. Wrapped and staked versions follow their base asset. Any token not listed is counted as other.

Bitcoin

WBTC, cbBTC, tBTC, LBTC, eBTC, FBTC, BTCb, pumpBTC, BTC

Ethereum

WETH, stETH, wstETH, cbETH, rETH, weETH, osETH, ETHx, rsETH, ezETH, tETH, wrsETH

Stablecoins

USDC, USDT, DAI, sDAI, USDS, sUSDS, USDe, sUSDe, eUSDe, USDtb, GHO, LUSD, FRAX, frxUSD, crvUSD, PYUSD, RLUSD, USDG, syrupUSDG, syrupUSDT, mUSD, OUSD, USAT, EURC, USDC.e, MAI, EURS, USDbC, syrupUSDC

Waves and large positions

Liquidations are summed in 5-minute steps. A wave starts when the hourly total reaches $5.0M and 3 times its usual high (the 95th percentile of the previous 30 days), and ends after 2 h below 3 times the usual median (at least $500K). Waves less than 6 hours apart are one event. A single position of $1.0M or more is an event of its own. See liquidation cascades and the magnitude scale.

Speed, finality and corrections

The chains are read every 15 minutes, up to the newest block. Over the last 7 days, half of the liquidations read as they happened were recorded within 5 h 39 min of their block, and nine in ten within 21 h 45 min.

Recent blocks can still be replaced by the chain (a reorganisation). Until a block is final its liquidations are provisional: every run checks the recent blocks again and replaces what changed. Totals are only judged for waves once every chain is read and valued up to that time; a page says so when a chain is behind.

When late or corrected data changes an event after it closed, the event is revised and its page lists the earlier values. An event that no longer qualifies is withdrawn, not deleted: its address keeps working, but its figures are no longer shown.

Sources

Events are read from Ethereum, Arbitrum and Base through Envio HyperSync; prices are read through an Alchemy node from the contracts named under Prices. Every event page links its transactions on the chain's block explorer, so each number can be checked.