I recently reviewed the liquidation process and found that many people focus on the leverage multiple, but ignore this particularly sneaky pitfall: the “price feed lagging by half a beat.” To put it plainly, once the oracle’s quotes are delayed, the price you see for your position may still look pretty normal, but the liquidation line on the other side is calculated using the old price. When volatility spikes, it’s easy to get liquidated early. What’s even more annoying is that by the time the price updates again, you may already be gone—and you’re left thinking it was just your slow hands.

Now, before I interact, I make a point of checking quickly: which price feed the protocol uses, roughly how often it updates, and whether there’s a backup source in extreme market conditions. Otherwise, I just lower the leverage as a kind of insurance.

By the way, I’ve also been thinking about the recent outcry over NFT royalties. Honestly, it’s similar to these “who gets to decide the rules/data” problems. When liquidity tightens, the first thing to get rubbed out is always the small profits of ordinary people. In any case, I’d rather make a little less than be “educated” by this kind of delay.