Order flowCVD and volume delta
CVD and volume delta
The difference between aggressive buys and sells per candle and cumulated, with settings and tips for reading it.
Every trade has an aggressor: whoever buys with a market order lifts the offer, whoever sells with a market order hits the bid. The delta of a candle is the aggressive buy volume minus the aggressive sell volume.
- Volume delta shows this delta per candle as bars around a zero line.
- Cumulative volume delta (CVD) adds the deltas up continuously. If the CVD rises, buyers have applied more pressure than sellers over time.
Both are available in all plans, for cryptocurrencies. For other symbols the entry says “… has no order flow volume.”
Add
- Top bar → Indicators (or
/) → Order flow tab. - Cumulative volume delta (CVD) or Volume delta → + Add.
Both appear in their own pane below the chart. The header shows the name and the value under the crosshair; when you hover, the eye icon, gear, remove and collapse appear. You change the height by dragging the border between the panes. More on this in the indicators overview.
The source
In the settings, you choose under Source:
- Binance (taker volume), the default, counts only Binance, regardless of your exchange aggregation, with the full history.
- Aggregated combines the delta across all exchanges in your exchange aggregation.
- A single exchange: Coinbase, Bybit, OKX, Bitget, Hyperliquid, Deribit, Kraken, Bitstamp, Bitfinex or BitMEX. This shows what is happening on one exchange.
Market: spot, perps or both
Under Market you choose Spot + perps (default), only Spot or only Perps. With Binance this counts Binance Spot or Binance Futures, with Aggregated or a single exchange its spot or perp markets. Add the CVD twice, once with spot and once with perps, and you see both side by side. The legend says what is being counted, for example “CVD · Spot”, “CVD · Binance Perps” or “Delta · Bybit Perps”.
Order size: large, medium, small
Under Order size, the CVD (or volume delta) can count only some of the orders if you wish, such as only large, medium or small orders:
- For each candle, the average buy and sell order is calculated (volume divided by the number of trades).
- Over the last Band length candles (default 50), this produces a band of ± Band width standard deviations (default 1).
- Large counts candles whose average order is above the band, Medium within the band, Small below it. The buy and sell sides are evaluated separately.
This needs the number of trades per side. The Aggregated source or a single exchange provides it, Binance (taker volume) does not; in that case the pane says which source you need to choose.
Settings
Cumulative volume delta (CVD):
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance (style) | Columns, Candles, Line, Area or Baseline | Candles |
| Source | Binance (taker volume), Aggregated or a single exchange | Binance |
| Market | Spot + perps, Spot or Perps | Spot + perps |
| Order size | All, Large, Medium, Small, with band length and band width | All |
| Rising color | Color of rising CVD candles and of the line | Cyan |
| Falling color | Color of falling CVD candles | Red |
Volume delta:
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Source | Binance (taker volume), Aggregated or a single exchange | Binance |
| Market | Spot + perps, Spot or Perps | Spot + perps |
| Order size | All, Large, Medium, Small | All |
| Appearance (style) | Columns, Candles, Line, Area or Baseline | Columns |
| Buy color | Bars with positive delta | Cyan |
| Sell color | Bars with negative delta | Red |
Volume (exchange)
The Volume (exchange) indicator shows the buy and sell volume per candle as a stacked column (buy at the bottom, sell on top) or as a line, area, candles or baseline. You choose the source and market as with the CVD, by default Aggregated, Spot + perps. The volume below the candles, on the other hand, keeps following your exchange aggregation.
Premium (spot − perp)
The Premium (spot − perp) indicator shows the gap between the spot and the perp price per candle.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Spot exchange | Aggregated (average of all spot exchanges where the symbol trades) or one exchange | Aggregated |
| Perp exchange | Aggregated (average of all perp exchanges) or one exchange | Aggregated |
| Direction | Spot − Perp or Perp − Spot | Spot − Perp |
| Unit | $ or % of the perp price | $ |
| Appearance | Columns, Candles, Line, Area or Baseline | Baseline |
With Spot − Perp, a negative premium means perps trade above spot and the market is paying for leverage. The average contains pairs in USD and in USDT; if USDT deviates from the dollar, that feeds in. For a clean comparison over long periods, choose one exchange per side.
A CVD candle starts at the level before the candle and ends at the level after it. It has no wicks. Volume delta scales symmetrically around the dashed zero line, based on the largest bar in the visible range.
How to read the values
- Values are in the coin unit, so BTC for Bitcoin, written compactly like “+12.3K” or “−4.5”.
- The CVD starts at zero with the first loaded candle. Its absolute level therefore depends on how far back the chart has loaded. Read the direction and compare highs and lows, not the number itself.
- A divergence is a common signal: the price makes a higher high, but the CVD makes a lower one. The rise is then being carried by fewer aggressive buys.
- Large volume delta without a price move often means that limit orders on the other side are absorbing the pressure. The order book heatmap shows where these orders sit.
Limits
- Binance (taker volume) describes only one exchange. For the whole market, choose Aggregated.
- While loading, the pane shows “Loading…”. If there are no values, the pane gives the reason.
- If you pause live data (super search, “Pause live data”), no more live trades reach the running candle.