Why was I liquidated above my liquidation price?

Exchanges liquidate on mark price, not the last trade you see on a chart. Mark can sit above your displayed liquidation level when last wicks lower but fair value does not follow, or when your UI used a stale estimate. The engine closes you when equity on mark breaches maintenance — not when a single print touches a line.

Virtually all major perp venues use mark price for unrealized P&L and liquidation checks. Last price is what filled most recently; mark is the venue's smoothed fair-value estimate. Your liquidation price is computed from mark-based equity, so comparing it to a last-price wick will often disagree.

Only if mark follows the wick far enough to breach maintenance. A thin last-price spike that mark ignores may not liquidate you; a sustained move where mark tracks the drop will. In fast markets mark can lag last briefly, but during cascades mark often moves with the book — recovery after liquidation does not reopen your position.

UI estimates assume current mark, leverage, margin mode, and maintenance rules — all of which change. Funding accrual, adding margin, cross-margin offsets, and mark updates shift the level in real time. Treat the displayed price as a snapshot; use a calculator and your venue's formulas for planning.