How to read the Terminal book

An order book lists the limit orders waiting on an exchange: offers to buy below the current price and offers to sell above it. In Terminal, Book shows the selected asset’s most traded dollar pair on an exchange whose public depth we read (Binance, OKX, Coinbase, Kraken, KuCoin, Gate or Bitget), and names that exchange at the top. It is a live snapshot of one venue, so it tells you about trading conditions there. It is not a price Dextape is offering.

Key takeaways

• Bids are buy orders and sit below the mid price. Asks are sell orders and sit above it.
• The spread is the gap between the best ask and the best bid. Terminal shows it as a percentage of the best bid.
• Depth, the size waiting at each level, shows how far a large order would move the price.
• The book changes constantly, and orders can be cancelled before anyone trades against them.

Reading the ladder

Asks stack above the middle of the ladder and bids below it, with the best prices closest to the center. Each row shows a price and the size waiting there. The green and red bars show that size, scaled to the largest level on screen, so you can see where orders cluster.

Mid is the average of the best bid and the best ask. Spread is (best ask − best bid) ÷ best bid, shown as a percentage.

Worked example

Suppose the best bid is $99.90 and the best ask is $100.10. Mid is $100.00, and the spread is $0.20 ÷ $99.90, about 0.2%. Now suppose the asks hold 5 units at $100.10, 10 units at $100.30 and 20 units at $100.80. A market order to buy 15 units takes all 5 at $100.10 and 10 at $100.30, for an average of about $100.23. That is price impact: the larger the order relative to the depth, the further it walks up the book. These figures are illustrative.

What the book can and cannot show

• A thin book, with a wide spread and little size, warns that trading will be expensive. It is a cost signal, not a market story.
• Large orders can be placed and cancelled within seconds. Size on the screen is not a promise to trade.
• Binance is one venue. Other exchanges and DEX pools have their own books and prices.
• Assets without a Binance USDT pair show an empty state. Dextape does not draw a ladder it cannot source.