Long and short in one minute
A long is a trade on the price going up. You buy and make money if the price rises.
A short is a trade on the price going down. You sell and make money if the price falls.
An example on BTC at $100,000:
| Long | Short | |
|---|---|---|
| Opened at | $100,000 | $100,000 |
| Price rises to $105,000 | +5% | -5% |
| Price falls to $95,000 | -5% | +5% |
Below: how you make money on a fall, how not to get liquidated and how to use the long short ratio.
How you can make money on a fall
On spot a short is hard to open: to sell a coin you have to own it or borrow it.
On futures it is simpler. A futures contract is a contract on the price, you do not need the coin itself. Press "Sell" and the short is open. If the price falls, the difference goes to you. If it rises, you pay the difference.
That is why on futures long and short are equal: a trade on a fall is as easy to open as a trade on a rise.
Leverage and liquidation
On futures you open a trade with leverage. 10x leverage means that with $1,000 of your own money (margin) you open a $10,000 position.
- The price moves 5% your way: the position makes $500, that is +50% on your margin.
- The price moves 5% against you: minus $500, half of your margin.
- The price moves about 9-10% against you: the margin is almost gone and the exchange closes the position itself. This is liquidation, the margin is lost.
The higher the leverage, the closer the liquidation: at 10x it is about 10% from the entry, at 50x about 2%. On an altcoin the price can cover 2% in minutes.
How not to get liquidated
- Put your stop before the liquidation. A stop closes the trade at a loss you chose yourself. Liquidation takes the whole margin.
- Choose leverage from your stop, not the other way round. If the chart says your stop belongs 8% from the entry, 20x does not fit: liquidation comes before the stop.
- Check the liquidation price before you enter. You can calculate it in the futures calculator.
What is the long short ratio
The long short ratio shows how traders split between a rise and a fall on one coin.
Binance publishes several of these numbers for every futures pair:
| What it counts | Who it counts | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Account ratio | all traders on the pair | how many people are long and how many are short |
| Top traders, accounts | the largest accounts by margin | how many of them are long and short |
| Top traders, positions | the largest accounts by margin | which side holds more of their money |
The best known number is the first one, across all accounts. Our long short ratio table shows it for all pairs at once.
How to read the number
- Above 1: more accounts are long than short. 2.0 means two accounts are long for every one that is short.
- Below 1: more accounts are short than long.
- Around 1: the two sides are about even.
It counts people, not money. A thousand small $100 longs and one $5M short read as "almost everyone is long", even though more money sits in the short.
And every coin has its own normal. On many altcoins 70-80% of accounts are long almost all the time: the crowd buys more often than it sells. So what matters is not the number itself, but how far it is from the usual level for this coin and how it changes.
The crowd against the whales
The account ratio shows the crowd: everyone, from a beginner with $20 to a large player. It helps to see the whales next to it: the largest profitable traders on the pair and the share of their positions that is long.
For example, on GUN 79% of accounts are long, while whales hold only 6% of their positions long. Big money and small money see the coin differently.
How to use the ratio in your own trade
1. Check that you are not standing with everyone else
If you open a long where 80% of accounts are already long, your stop and liquidation sit in the same place as most people's. You can see these clusters on the liquidation heatmap: a bright band below the price. The price only has to reach it to knock everyone out at once, you included.
What to do: put your stop beyond the cluster, not inside it, or use less leverage.
2. A crowd of shorts costs money
Every few hours longs and shorts pay each other funding. When there are too many shorts, the shorts pay.
On altcoins this can get very expensive. After a strong rally many people open a short "for the pullback", and funding goes deep negative. A worked example: funding of -0.5% every 4 hours is 3% of the position per day. With 10x leverage the short loses 30% of its margin per day, even if the price does not move.
Before you short such a coin, check the current rate on the funding rates page.
3. Watch the change, not the level
75% long on an altcoin is an ordinary day. It gets interesting when the number shifts sharply.
A sharp rise in the share of shorts while the price is rising means the crowd started shorting the move. Those leveraged shorts sit above the price. If the rally continues, their liquidations are market buys, and they push the price further.
4. Compare the crowd and the whales on the coin's chart
A gap between the crowd and the whales is a reason to open the chart and see how this coin behaved before. The charts have a Whales vs crowd panel: the share of longs among whales and among the crowd over time.
Breakdown: ORDER in October 2026
What the chart shows:
- Before October 24. The price stood around $0.03. The crowd stayed 75-78% long. Over the week whales left their longs: their long share fell from about 65% to 15-20%.
- October 24, the pump. In a few hours the price rose 2-3 times, up to $0.103 at the peak. The crowd started shorting the rally: its long share dropped to 52%. Whales did the opposite, their long share rose to about 45%.
- After the peak. The price went back to $0.034. The crowd is 67% long again, whales 16%.
How to read it: the sharp shift of the crowd into shorts during the pump was a moment worth looking at. The shorts opened against the rally sat above the price, and the wick to $0.103 went through them. After the peak the picture returned to what it was before: the crowd long, the whales short.
Common mistakes
- "Everyone is long, so it will rise" or "so it will fall". The ratio shows who stands where, it does not predict the price. A skew can last for weeks.
- Looking at one number. The ratio works together with the liquidation map, funding and whale positions.
- Comparing coins with each other. BTC and a small altcoin have a different normal crowd. Compare a coin with itself.
- Putting your stop where everyone else does. The most common place where the crowd gets knocked out.
Long and short on the stock market
The words are the same. A long on stocks is a purchase in hope of a rise. A short is selling shares borrowed from a broker, to buy them back cheaper later. On derivatives markets, such as futures, a short is opened as easily as in crypto.
Binance has futures on stocks, gold and oil, and the long short ratio is visible for them too: the "Gold, oil, stocks" tab in the table.
FAQ
What is a long in simple words?
A trade on the price going up. You buy an asset or a futures contract and make money if the price rises.
What is a short in simple words?
A trade on the price going down. On futures you sell a contract and make money if the price falls.
What does a long short ratio of 1.5 mean?
For every account that is short, one and a half are long. That is about 60% of accounts long and 40% short.
Is a high long short ratio bullish?
Not on its own. It shows how people split, not where the price will go. It is more useful to watch how the number changes and where the skew puts the liquidations.
What is the difference between the account ratio and the top trader ratio?
The account ratio counts all traders on the pair. The top trader ratio counts only the largest accounts by margin, separately by number of accounts and by position size.
Where can I see the long short ratio for all coins?
In the long short ratio table: every Binance futures pair, the crowd and the whales side by side, the 24h change. Free, updated every minute.
PumpGlass shows market data. It is not financial advice.