Order Book Depth
What it shows
Aggregated liquidity on the Bid and Ask sides visible in the Order Book for selected coins. The widget summarizes total depth, order imbalance in various price deviation bands, and the history of spread width.
How to read it
A sudden drop in depth or a widening spread points to high volatility and fleeing market makers, raising the risk of price whipsaws. Asymmetry between buy and sell orders across broad price bands can reveal heavy profit-taking walls or strong defense at support levels.
Parameters
- Imbalance
- Order book imbalance (-1 to 1). Negative values mean Ask dominance, positive means Bid dominance.
- Positive reading: Values near 0 (e.g. −0.2…+0.2) represent a balanced book with similar resting demand and supply.
- Negative reading: Extreme readings (e.g. below −0.5 or above +0.5) mean a heavily one-sided book; historically accompanied sharper moves once the thin side gave way.
- Neutral reading: A snapshot of resting orders, not trades. Large orders can be pulled within seconds (spoofing), so a single reading proves nothing.
- Spread
- The difference between the highest Bid and lowest Ask, displayed in basis points (bps; 1 bps = 0.01%).
- Positive reading: A tight, stable spread (for BTC/ETH usually single-digit bps) indicates deep, healthy liquidity.
- Negative reading: A sudden spread widening (a multi-fold jump in a short time) means market makers are stepping away; historically a setup for price whipsaws.
- Depth bands (±%)
- The USD value of Bid and Ask orders within successive bands around the current price (e.g. ±0.5%, ±1%, ±2%). Shows how thick the liquidity cushion is near and further from price.
- Neutral reading: Asymmetry in the wide bands can hint where large orders sit, but these are still resting orders, not a guaranteed defense of a level.
Example
BTC shows a 1.2 bps spread and +0.45 imbalance with a thick Bid in the ±1% band: a buy-tilted book. An hour later the spread jumps to 6 bps and imbalance drops to −0.1, meaning liquidity has pulled back. Historically such a shift accompanied choppy moves. A book description, not a forecast.