How to read a crypto orderbook
Every pending buy and sell at every price level, and what the resting size on each side actually tells you.
Last updated April 2026The orderbook is the most fundamental tool in trading. It shows you every pending buy and sell order at every price level. Reading it well tells you where the resting size actually sits, rather than guessing from the price alone.
The Basics
An orderbook has two sides:
- Bids (green): Buy orders. People willing to buy at this price. Stacked from highest to lowest.
- Asks (red): Sell orders. People willing to sell at this price. Stacked from lowest to highest.
The gap between the highest bid and lowest ask is the spread. A tight spread means high liquidity. A wide spread means thin trading.
What to Look For
Buy walls: A large bid order at a specific price. For example, 50 BTC sitting at $67,500. This acts as support. The price is unlikely to fall below it unless the wall gets eaten or pulled.
Sell walls: Same thing on the ask side. A large sell order acts as resistance. The price struggles to push through it.
Wall absorption: When a wall gets eaten (filled by market orders), it often signals the start of a move. When a sell wall at $70,000 gets absorbed, a fast move up often follows, though not always.
Spoofing: Large orders that appear and disappear. Whales sometimes place fake walls to manipulate sentiment. If a wall keeps appearing and vanishing, it's likely a spoof.
Key insight: A single exchange's orderbook only shows part of the picture. BTC trades across 15 exchanges at once. A "wall" on Binance might not exist on Bybit. That's why a combined orderbook is essential.
Why Combined Orderbooks Matter
If you're only looking at Binance, you're seeing roughly 30-40% of the total market depth. Large traders route orders across multiple exchanges to minimize slippage.
CoinLobster's combined orderbook aggregates depth from 15 exchanges into one view, so you see the true support and resistance, not just one exchange's perspective.
Orderbook + Whale Trades
The orderbook shows pending orders. Whale trades show actual executed orders. Together, they tell the complete story:
- Big wall + whale buying into it: resting size is being absorbed rather than added to.
- Thin orderbook + whale trade: little resting size to absorb it, so the same order moves price further than it would in a deep book.
- Whale sells into bids: Aggressive selling. Watch for follow-through.
Learn More
- Bitcoin Whale Tracker: Track $100K+ BTC trades
- Crypto Whale Alerts Guide: How to trade with whale signals
- Combined Orderbook: 15 exchanges in one view
