I was startled by the third time the liquidation line for my borrowed position was hit… when I’m three steps away from the red line, I basically don’t stubbornly hold on anymore: first, I cut off a portion of the position that can be treated as “it’s fine if it goes bad,” even if it means eating some fees, and my mindset relaxes immediately by a whole notch; then, I swap the collateral with the most volatility for something steadier (I’m not chasing returns anymore—my priority is not getting popped by a single needle-like spike). Finally, I’ll move the warning threshold a bit earlier, so I don’t have to wait for on-chain congestion and spend half a day stuck on margin call execution.

Recently, someone again tried to explain market ups and downs by tossing together ETF capital flows and the risk appetite for the U.S. stock market—really, it’s just something to listen to. When you’re truly close to the liquidation edge, whether the market is “telling a story” or not doesn’t matter; what matters is whether you can reposition yourself from “forced passive selling” back to “an active choice” within two trades. In any case, I’d rather make a little less than be woken up in the middle of the night by a liquidation alert.