How to read a Dextape chart

Open an asset in Terminal and the chart is the first thing you see. Before reading it, check the source and update time shown beside it. Price history and candles come from supported providers, including CoinGecko, Binance and CoinMarketCap’s DEX data, and coverage depends on the asset, the trading pair and the range you choose. Where history is missing, the chart says so. A sampled price line is never presented as genuine candles.

Key takeaways

• Every chart view is drawn from the same sourced data. Check the provider and timestamp first.
• Shorter ranges use finer bars; longer ranges use coarser ones.
• Candles need real open, high, low and close data from a specific venue or pool.
• Log scale compares percentage moves, and moving averages count bars, not days. Neither is a signal.

The range row

Seven ranges sit above the chart: 4H, 1D, 1W, 1M, 3M, 1Y and All. Each loads bars sized for its period, from minutes on the shortest ranges to days or weeks on the longest, so the chart stays readable. On desktop you can zoom with the mouse wheel, but the bar size changes only when you pick a new range.

• 4H and 1D show a single session. Use them to see what happened today, not to judge a trend.
• 1W to 1Y show swings and trends over weeks and months.
• All shows the history the provider holds. It may not reach back to the asset’s first trade, and its resolution varies by source.

Area or candles

Area mode draws the last price through time and is the clearest way to see direction and slope. Candle mode draws each bar’s open, high, low and close, so you can see how far the price travelled within the period. Hover over a bar to read its values. Candles need genuine OHLC data for the asset or pair, so check the venue or pool named on the chart: its prices can differ from an aggregated market quote. An asset with no Binance pair may still have candles from a supported DEX pool.

Log scale

On a standard price axis, equal dollar moves take equal space. On a log scale, equal percentage moves do. A rise from $10 to $20 and a rise from $100 to $200 are both a doubling, and on a log axis they cover the same height. Use log when you compare long histories or assets whose prices have changed by orders of magnitude.

Moving averages

Turn on averages and the chart draws simple moving averages over 7 and 25 bars, using candle closes in candle mode. The windows count bars, not calendar days. On the 1D range, where bars are typically five minutes long, a 25-bar average covers about two hours; on 1Y, with daily bars, it covers 25 days. Averages appear only where a full window of data exists. They smooth what already happened and do not predict what comes next.

Volume and comparisons

Volume has its own scale, separate from the price axis, so bar heights never read as prices. On any asset other than Bitcoin, press V to overlay bitcoin’s price over the same range for comparison.

Keyboard shortcuts

• J and K, or the arrow keys: step through assets.
• 1 to 7: switch range.
• A and C: area or candles.
• L: log scale. M: moving averages. V: compare with Bitcoin.
• B: order book. T: news tape.
• ?: show every shortcut.