GlossaryFootprint
Footprint
The footprint opens up every candle: instead of just open, high, low and close, you see how much was aggressively bought and sold at each price level. This shows you where in the candle buyers or sellers were in control, where volume was absorbed, and where a strong imbalance pushed the price further.
How to read it
- Stacked imbalances: Several buy imbalances on top of each other show buyers actively pushing the price up. If the price then holds above this zone, it is often tested as support. The mirror image applies to sell imbalances.
- Absorption: A lot of sell volume at the low, but the candle closes above it: limit buyers absorbed the aggressive sells. A delta against the candle's direction points the same way.
- POC position: If most of the volume is at the upper end of a rising candle, a lot was traded there without the price getting further. If it is in the middle, the candle was more balanced.
- Thin levels: Little volume over a stretch means the price ran through there quickly.
Limitations
- The footprint is only available for cryptocurrencies.
- Several exchanges quote slightly differently, for example USD against USDT or perp against spot. Their prices are aligned with each other before being sorted in. The rows can therefore extend slightly beyond the high or low of the drawn candle.
- If only part of a candle's trades are available, its rows are dimmed, without POC and imbalances, and “partial” appears below it instead of delta and volume: those would pass off a part as the whole. Shaded candles are missing data, not a quiet market.
- If you pause the live data in the footer, no new trades enter the current candle.