The core reason is that the insurance fund pools behind different contracts are completely independent. As the last line of defense for exchange risk control, the core logic of ADL (Auto-Deleveraging) is to use funds from profitable positions in the contract that has incurred bankruptcy losses to cover the deficit, instead of spreading losses evenly across all users on the entire platform.
A leading global cryptocurrency platform,suitable for both beginners and experienced traders.
New user benefit: 20% off trading fees upon registration!！
Independent Insurance Funds Are The Core Reason
ADL is the final step of the forced liquidation process, which is only triggered when the insurance fund cannot cover the bankruptcy loss. An exchange's insurance fund itself is managed separately by individual contract or underlying asset.
Official OKX documents clearly state this rule: Although the insurance funds for all USDT-margined perpetual contracts are denominated in USDT, the capital pools for different contracts are independent of each other and cannot be merged for calculation. This means the insurance fund of the BTCUSDT contract can never be used to cover the bankruptcy loss of the ETHUSDT contract.
Since all funds are accounted for separately per contract, the ADL queue that selects positions to cover losses can only be calculated separately for each contract. Any loss that occurs in one contract's fund pool will only be deducted from profitable accounts of that exact contract.
ADL Queue Ranking Formula: Profit × Leverage
Calculating queues separately for different contracts does not mean the ranking logic inside each queue is different. The ADL sorting rule is a widely accepted industry standard, clearly specified in official exchange documents:
ADL Priority Score = Profit Percentage × Effective Leverage
The system sorts all profitable positions from highest to lowest by this score. The higher your score, the higher you rank, and the more likely you are to be selected for auto-deleveraging. You can check your position in the queue via the ADL indicator (usually 1 to 5 bars) next to your position. The more bars lit up, the higher you rank in the ADL queue.
Under cross margin mode, if your account holds fully hedged positions, the hedged part gets ADL protection and will not be selected. But you cannot get such hedging protection across different contracts -- the system will not recognize your profitable BTC position as valid cover for an ETH contract loss.
A leading global cryptocurrency platform,suitable for both beginners and experienced traders.
New user benefit: 20% off trading fees upon registration!！
Verification Method For Risk Check
To confirm your ADL risk for each contract, just check the indicator next to every profitable position on your positions panel. More lit bars mean higher ADL risk.
If a position shows a very high ADL indicator, the most direct solution is to lower your leverage or take partial profits actively. These two operations will directly reduce your ADL priority score for that specific contract, moving you back in the queue. You cannot rely on profits or losses from other contracts to help you avoid ADL.
