Reading the market
Eight lessons on the numbers this site is built from. Funding, open interest, liquidations, volume, market depth. Each lesson opens with the live value of the number it teaches.
7 of 8 lessons readyFunding rate: what the number means and why it shows positioning rather than direction
The funding rate is a periodic payment between long and short positions on perpetual futures that keeps the contract price anchored to spot. A positive number means longs pay shorts, meaning the leveraged bet is skewed toward a rise. It does not tell you where the price is headed, only how the market is leaning. Our live value for BTC was +1.37% p.a., read at 15:30 (source: syndicate).
Open interest: how to tell new money from position closing
Open interest is the number of open derivative contracts that nobody has closed yet; when it rises alongside price, new money is flowing in, and when it falls alongside price, positions are being closed.
Liquidations and cascades: how they form, why they cluster, and what a liquidation map really shows you
A liquidation is the forced closing of a leveraged position when collateral can no longer cover the loss; a cascade happens when one liquidation moves the price enough to trigger another, and a liquidation map isn't a forecast, it's just a picture of where clustered positions are prone to being closed.
Long/short ratio: what it actually measures and why a majority in longs is not a signal by itself
The long/short ratio shows the ratio between open long and short positions in the derivatives market. It does not tell you where the price is going. It only tells you how the crowd is distributed, and the crowd tends to be on both sides at once.
Volume vs. liquidity: why a big 24h number doesn't mean you'll sell at that price
The 24-hour volume tells you how much churned through over the whole day, not how much you can offload right now without moving the price. That second thing is liquidity, and it's an entirely different number.
Order book depth and spread: how to tell if the market can handle a real order
Order book depth tells you how much you can buy or sell before the price moves, and the spread is the price you pay for wanting the trade right now; together they show whether the market can absorb your order without much slippage.
Bitcoin dominance: what it actually measures and why the number alone does not signal an incoming altseason
Bitcoin dominance is Bitcoin's share of the total crypto market capitalization. When it falls, it usually means money is rotating into altcoins, but the number by itself never tells you whether the growth is healthy or what happens next.
The remaining 1 lessons are being written and appear as they land.