This Guide describes the order book and market depth chart functionality on Cryptowatch. For an in-depth explanation of how order books and market depth charts work, check out our Trader Education Guide:
Every chart page has a price chart for the market, a live depth chart, order book, and trade feeds. Some markets also have a Trading panel used for executing and managing trades for that market. See below for more information on each section.
The depth chart, order book and trades history can be hidden or unhidden by clicking the vertical bars to the left of each section, noted by a grey arrow ().
The depth chart graphically represents the order book of the current market in real-time.
The last-traded price takes the middle point, bid (buy) orders are below and asks (sell) orders are above.
Price values shown with tick marks on the left axis of the depth chart represent larger buy or sell volumes.
Price values shown with alert-colored arrows (yellow, by default) on the left axis represent price alerts you have set for that market.
The Span setting lets you adjust specifically how much of the order book is shown on the depth chart. For example, a 5% span setting will show the order book 5% both above and below the current market price.
The order book is an organized list of orders used to record the interest of buyers and sellers for a specific market. The order book section of the chart organizes all waiting limit orders in the current market by price.
Column | Details |
Left | Price point of pending orders already on the order book. In red are the prices sellers are willing to sell at (Ask prices) In green are the prices buyers are willing to buy at (Bid prices) |
Center | Quantity of the asset available at that row's bid or ask price (seen in the left column) |
Right | Total volume of orders in the order book from the last-traded price to the price point being observed |
The large number in the center indicates the last-traded price — the price at which the asset was last bought or sold for. The system automatically highlights rows with larger orders found in the order book.
The Grouping setting lets you group orders by a certain amount, allowing you to see more or less of the order book. A grouping setting of 50 will group orders by 50s (i.e. 3,800, 3,850, 3,900, etc).
To view the order book by each unique price alone, change the Grouping setting to None.
The Trade Feed shows all the most recent trades for the specified market. In the top-right is a clock showing the current time in 24-hour format.
The color of the price in the left column does not represent the order as a buy or a sell.
Green text — the price of that trade was above the price of the previous trade
Red text — the price of that trade was below the price of the previous trade
The columns of the trades feed represent the following:
Column | Description |
Left | Price of the executed trade |
Middle | Quantity of the asset in the executed trade |
Right | Timestamp of the trade |