You see a few lights lit up next to your futures position and don't know what they mean — actually, they are called ADL indicator lights, not a malfunction warning. They tell you where your position stands in the "auto-deleveraging queue." The more lights that are on, the more likely your position will be prioritized for forced deleveraging if the platform triggers the ADL (auto-deleveraging) mechanism.
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What Exactly Is the ADL Mechanism?
ADL is the last line of defense in OKX risk control. Here is how it works: when the market moves extremely, there are so many liquidation orders that the insurance fund cannot cover them and the normal liquidation process cannot handle them all, the system will not keep placing orders on the order book and wait for execution. Instead, it will directly match your profitable position against liquidated positions in the ADL queue based on ranking.
Simply put, you will not encounter this in normal daily trading, but in extreme market conditions it can indeed affect your position.
How ADL Light Ranking Works
The ADL queue is sorted by "leverage profit rate" from high to low. The higher your leverage profit rate, the closer you are to the front of the queue, and the more lights will be lit.
Leverage profit rate is calculated like this: for profitable positions, leverage profit rate = position profit rate / account margin rate. For losing positions, it is multiplied instead.
So high-leverage, high-floating-profit positions are the most likely ADL targets. If all the lights on your position are lit, it means if ADL triggers today, your position will be among the first to be reduced.
How to Reduce Your Risk of Being Deleveraged
OKX officially provides four actionable paths:
- Add margin: lower your account's actual leverage multiple
- Actively reduce position: take some profit off the table and reduce your position size
- Choose major coins: trade contracts with better depth and stronger liquidity
- Use a Delta neutral strategy: in OKX's Delta neutral strategy mode, fully hedged positions will rank further back in the ADL queue
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A Common Misunderstanding
ADL triggering only looks at ranking, not whether you are a "good user." Even if your position is small, as long as your leverage profit rate ranks near the front, you may still be deleveraged when ADL activates. The platform's official documentation clearly states that ADL "is achieved by deleveraging counterparty positions that are profitable and have higher leverage."
How to check your current risk: find the ADL indicator light in the futures position interface and see how many bars are lit. 1-2 bars means low risk, while 4-5 bars means you are near the front of the ADL queue. If more than 4 bars are already lit, consider adding margin or reducing your position to move your ranking further back.
