5 min readReference

Bitcoin Order Flow Glossary

Every term you'll encounter when reading Bitcoin order flow data - defined plainly, without unnecessary jargon. The glossary covers the vocabulary used on Bitcoin Live and in professional order flow analysis.

ABCDEFILMNOPSTV

A

Aggressor
The party that initiates a trade by crossing the spread. The aggressor is always the taker - they place an order that immediately fills against a resting maker order. Identifying the aggressor is the foundation of order flow analysis.
Ask
The lowest price at which a seller is willing to sell. Also called the offer. A market buy order fills at the ask. The spread is the difference between the best bid and best ask.

B

Bid
The highest price at which a buyer is willing to buy. A market sell order (hitting the bid) fills at the bid price. Order flow analysts track how quickly bids are absorbed vs lifted.
Buy pressure
The percentage of covered traded volume that came from the taker buy side over a selected period. The dashboard uses a rolling lookback; the Pressure chart uses time buckets. Above 50% means taker-buy volume was larger in that sample, not that buyers were profitable or that price must rise.

C

CVD (Cumulative Volume Delta)
The running total of taker buy volume minus taker sell volume from a chosen starting point. Rising CVD records more taker-buy than taker-sell volume; falling CVD records the reverse. A divergence from price is an observation to compare with absorption, venue coverage, and the chosen window—not a guaranteed reversal. See the full CVD guide CVD guide →

D

Delta
In order flow, delta refers to the difference between taker buy volume and taker sell volume over a candle or period. Positive delta = more buying. Negative delta = more selling. Cumulative delta over many candles is CVD.

E

ETF flow
An estimate of net money entering or leaving spot Bitcoin ETF shares, generally derived from daily shares outstanding and net asset value. A positive figure does not prove that the custodian bought Bitcoin at the publication time, because creation/redemption settlement and fund reporting can differ. Tracked on the Bitcoin Live ETF Flows page. ETF Flows page →
ETF wallet attribution
A labeled association between an on-chain address and an ETF, fund, custodian, or known wallet cluster. Attribution is evidence-based but can be incomplete or revised; an address movement is not automatically an ETF creation, redemption, purchase, or sale without corroborating fund data.

F

Footprint
A price ladder inside each candle that displays traded buy and sell volume at individual price levels. Ordinary buy/sell histogram bars beneath a price chart summarize a candle or time bucket; they are not footprint bars unless they preserve the within-candle price ladder.
Funding rate
The periodic payment between longs and shorts on a perpetual futures contract, designed to help keep the perp price close to spot. When funding is positive, longs pay shorts for that venue and interval. Its magnitude describes the cost and market skew, but does not guarantee a squeeze or reversal.

I

Imbalance
An order flow imbalance is when one side significantly outpaces the other - typically defined as one side exceeding the other by a threshold percentage. A buy imbalance at a price level indicates aggressive demand. Bitcoin Live surfaces imbalance through the net delta and buy percentage metrics.

L

Liquidation
A forced close of a leveraged futures position when the margin is insufficient to cover losses. Long liquidations happen during price drops (forced selling). Short liquidations happen during price spikes (forced buying). Large cascading liquidations create volume spikes visible in order flow.

M

Model availability
Whether a derived model has enough current inputs, venue coverage, and historical baseline to calculate a result. Unavailable means the required evidence is missing or insufficient; it must not be interpreted as a neutral reading or replaced with an estimate.
Maker
The passive party in a trade - the one who posted the resting limit order that got filled. The maker provides liquidity and typically earns a rebate on the exchange fee schedule. The opposite of the taker (the aggressor).

N

Net delta
Taker buy USD minus taker sell USD over a period. The most direct measure of order-flow imbalance. Bitcoin Live shows net delta per asset per window on the dashboard.

O

Open interest (OI)
The number or reported notional value of outstanding derivative contracts. Each contract connects one long with one short and is counted once, not once per side. USD notional is exposure rather than posted margin, and USD-valued OI can change when Bitcoin's price changes even if contract count does not. Price direction alone cannot identify which side opened. OI is tracked on the Bitcoin Live Open Interest page. Open Interest page →
Order flow
The stream of matched trades, each with a time, price, size, venue, and inferred aggressor side. A feed covers only its included venues and instruments; order-flow metrics summarize that sample rather than the entire market. See the full guide full guide →

P

Perpetual futures (perp)
A futures contract with no expiry date. It tracks the underlying price via a funding rate mechanism that periodically transfers payments between longs and shorts to prevent the contract from drifting from spot price. Perp volume often exceeds spot volume by 5–10×.
Pressure oscillator
Bitcoin Live's pressure oscillator plots the spot and futures buy percentage on a shared axis over time, making spot-vs-futures divergences immediately visible. See the live oscillator pressure oscillator →

S

Spot share
Spot volume divided by combined covered spot and futures volume over a rolling window. It measures market mix, not direction: 25% spot share can coexist with either buy- or sell-dominant spot pressure. The calculation depends on included venues and available history.
Spot market
An exchange market where Bitcoin is bought and sold for immediate delivery. Spot orders represent real capital - the buyer is acquiring actual Bitcoin. Contrast with futures, where no Bitcoin changes hands.

T

Taker
The party that crosses the spread - placing a market order or a marketable limit that fills immediately against a resting maker order. The taker is the aggressor. Buy flow = taker bought; sell flow = taker sold. Order flow analysis is almost entirely focused on the taker side.

V

Venue
An individual exchange or trading platform. Bitcoin Live tracks order flow from multiple venues simultaneously and shows per-venue breakdowns on the Asset Detail pages (e.g. /asset/BTC). The contribution from each venue to total flow varies significantly by time of day and market conditions. Asset Detail →
Volume
The total USD value of all trades (buy + sell) over a period. Volume is directionless - it tells you how much was traded but not who won. Order flow analysis uses delta and CVD to add the directional component to volume.
VWAP (Volume-Weighted Average Price)
The average price of all trades weighted by their volume. VWAP is the reference benchmark for large institutional orders - trading above VWAP is bullish context, below is bearish. Not directly shown on Bitcoin Live but provides context for interpreting the order flow data.