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Order book and liquidity

What it is

The order book is limit orders: who is ready to buy below the price (bids) and sell above it (asks). These are intentions, not trades: an order can be pulled in an instant. The terminal shows the order book on the right, and large “walls” and liquidity near the price on the chart.

More: how we calculate it

Order book on the right — the live Bybit order book; if the live stream goes silent, the aggregated book of the exchanges is substituted.
A “wall” in the order book is a level noticeably larger than its neighbors; “standing …” (for example “standing 14 min”) — how long the server has seen it. “± 60 s” — how much was added and removed at the level over a minute.
“Order book liquidity · walls now” on the chart — from the aggregated book of Binance, Bybit, OKX, Hyperliquid, Bitget, Gate (identical prices are summed): large orders near the price; a recently appeared one is marked “new”.
Panes “Order book imbalance 0–1%”, “Order book imbalance 1–3%”, “Order book imbalance 3–5%” (in “Layers” — “Order book near price”, modes “skew 0–1%”, “skew 1–3%”, “skew 3–5%”) — the difference between buy and sell orders ($) within these ranges from the mid price. An empty range is a gap, not zero.
Snapshots below — the “Order book imbalance 0–1%” pane.

What it looks like in EVA

**BTC · 1h · 09.10 08:00 MSK** — “Order book imbalance 0–1%” pane: buy orders minus sell orders near the price, $Show on chart

How it is read

Typical patterns: how traders read them and use them, and for each one a real moment from our history where it played out as a "textbook case". Moments where the same pattern failed are below, in "When it does not work".

1. Within 1% of the price there are noticeably more buy orders

How it is read: dense liquidity is resting below — market sellers have to “eat” it. Many treat such a side as support.

textbook caseSOL · 1h · 01.10 20:00 MSK — within 0–1% of the price, buy orders exceed sell orders by $22.8 M — in the coin's top 5% for the month; then as expected: 1% up within 8 hShow on chart

2. Within 1% of the price there are noticeably more sell orders

How it is read: a wall of sellers stands above. Many treat it as resistance.

textbook caseSOL · 1h · 08.10 03:00 MSK — within 0–1% of the price, sell orders exceed buy orders by $13.0 M — in the bottom 5%; then as expected: 1% down within 4 hShow on chart

When it does not work

No pattern works every time: the order book explains better who is ready to trade near the price than where it will go: an order is pulled in an instant.

The same patterns — moments from our history where they failed.

pattern failedBTC · 1h · 08.10 06:00 MSK — within 0–1% of the price, buy orders exceed sell orders by $111.8 M — in the coin's top 5% for the month; then the opposite: 1% down within 9 hShow on chart

pattern failedBTC · 1h · 04.10 12:00 MSK — within 0–1% of the price, sell orders exceed buy orders by $80.7 M — in the bottom 5%; then the opposite: 1% up within 13 hShow on chart

Common traps

Spoofing: a large order is placed to scare others and pulled when the price approaches.
A wall is a magnet: price may be drawn to a large order to get filled against it rather than bounce off it.
Not all exchanges: the order book is collected from our list of venues, and there is liquidity on others too.
Speed: the order book changes in fractions of a second; the snapshot on the chart is an average.

In the terminal: Order book liquidity · walls now

Large limit orders standing in the book right now: from $150,000 and at least six times the usual level of that book. The book is merged: Binance, Bybit, OKX, Hyperliquid, Bitget and Gate (the public Bitget and Gate books are shallow — 100 and 300 levels near price; far walls come from the first four). This is a mode of the “Order book liquidity” layer (together with “history”, the heatmap). Each wall is a thin line from when it appeared to “now”, under the candles: dimmer at the old end, brighter towards “now”; thickness and brightness follow the size; bids in lilac, asks in sand. Filled or pulled — it disappears. Standing longer than the visible window — “standing since …” at the left edge.

Labels (size and age, “≥” when the start is unknown) — in the settings: “always”, “on Alt” (default) or “never”. “On Alt”: while Alt is held the labels are shown; release it and only the lines remain. The same Alt over the heatmap still opens the loupe. Labels do not go over candles or each other: if there is no room, the smaller ones are hidden.

An order can be pulled in one move, and they are pulled. The archive check did not show price moving more often in any direction after a wall was pulled or filled.

On the phone

Large limit orders standing in the book right now: from $150,000 and at least six times the usual level of that book. The book is merged: Binance, Bybit, OKX, Hyperliquid, Bitget and Gate (the public Bitget and Gate books are shallow — 100 and 300 levels near price; far walls come from the first four). On the phone the “Order book liquidity” layer shows walls on every timeframe. Each wall is a thin line from when it appeared to “now”, under the candles: dimmer at the old end, brighter towards “now”; thickness and brightness follow the size; bids in lilac, asks in sand. Filled or pulled — it disappears. Standing longer than the visible window — “standing since …” at the left edge.

Labels (size at the scale) — in the layer settings: “always” (default on the phone) or “never”. Labels do not go over each other: if there is no room, the smaller ones are hidden.