Crypto trading glossary

An aggregated order book combines the bids and asks for one instrument from many exchanges into one view, so you read depth across venues instead of one exchange at a time. Prices and sizes are grouped by level, and each level adds up the size resting there across the venues included.

In Tabmydata, the Orderbook tab merges the exchanges you select into one live ladder, and the Orderbook Heatmap aggregates resting depth across exchanges over time.

See it in Tabmydata: multi-exchange order book · aggregated order book heatmap

Basis is the difference between the price of a derivative and the price of the underlying spot market. Spot-perp basis compares a perpetual futures price with the spot price of the same coin. A positive basis means the perpetual trades above spot. A negative basis means it trades below. It is a measure of how far apart the two markets are, not a prediction.

A liquidation is the forced close of a leveraged position when the trader's margin can no longer cover losses. The exchange closes the position at market. Liquidations are recorded after they happen. Liquidation totals are a floor, not a total.

See it in Tabmydata: crypto liquidation tracker

A liquidation heatmap draws estimated liquidation levels by price over time. Exchanges don't publish where leveraged positions would be liquidated, so these levels are modeled estimates, not real orders on a book. Brighter bands mean more estimated liquidations at that price. It is not a forecast.

See it in Tabmydata: modeled liquidation heatmap · how to read a liquidation heatmap · liquidity heatmap vs liquidation heatmap

A long liquidation is the forced close of a leveraged long position after price falls far enough. A short liquidation is the forced close of a leveraged short after price rises far enough. A long liquidation is a forced sell; a short liquidation is a forced buy.

See it in Tabmydata: long and short liquidations, live · how to track crypto liquidations

A market session is the period when a market or region is open for regular trading, such as the Asian, London or New York session. Crypto trades around the clock, but stocks, ETFs and gold follow sessions, and session opens, closes and overlaps shape the trading day. Market Clock shows seven stock markets on one 24-hour axis in your time zone.

See it in Tabmydata: world market hours

Open interest is the total number (or dollar value) of derivative contracts that are open and not yet closed. It rises when new positions open and falls when positions close. It shows how much leveraged exposure is in a market, not which side holds it. A rising number and a falling number both need context.

Depth is how much size rests in the order book at and around the current price. A deep book has a lot of size near price; a thin book has little. Depth is often shown as a ladder, a depth chart, or over time on a liquidity heatmap.

See it in Tabmydata: order book depth over time

Time and sales (also called the tape) is the list of trades as they print: time, price, size and side. It shows what actually traded, while the order book shows what is waiting to trade. Traders filter it by size to see large prints.

See it in Tabmydata: live crypto trades · how to filter trades by size

A whale is an account that holds or trades a large amount of a coin compared with most market participants. There is no fixed threshold. On Hyperliquid, accounts are public, so you can see a whale's positions by wallet address.

See it in Tabmydata: Hyperliquid whale tracker · Hyperliquid wallet tracking guide

A liquidity heatmap (also called an order book heatmap) draws resting order-book depth over time. Price runs left to right, and each price level is coloured by how much size sat there: bright bands are large resting orders, faint areas are thin. It shows where liquidity sat and how it changed. Orders can be moved or pulled, so it is not a forecast.

See it in Tabmydata: liquidity heatmap with order book history · how to read a liquidity heatmap

Hyperliquid is a decentralised exchange for perpetual futures that runs its order book on its own blockchain. Because of that, positions and trades are public and tied to a wallet address. Traders follow large Hyperliquid accounts to see how size is positioned.

See it in Tabmydata: Hyperliquid whale tracker · how to track Hyperliquid wallets

Orderbook Profile is an indicator inside the Orderbook Heatmap tab. It draws horizontal bars at the right edge of the chart that show resting size at each price level. Choose Live for the current book, or a summed window of 4H, 1D, 3D or 1W. You can read the size in the coin or in USD.

It shows resting order-book size, not traded volume, and it is not a forecast. Like the heatmap, it shows where liquidity sat and how big.

See it in Tabmydata: Orderbook Heatmap · how the Orderbook Profile works

The Fear & Greed Index puts the market's mood on one scale, from Extreme Fear to Extreme Greed. It updates once a day, so it is a slow gauge, not a live one.

The Fear & Greed tab credits its data to providers including CoinMarketCap and Alternative.me, lets you compare two providers and shows the history over ranges from 7D to All. It describes sentiment. It is not a buy or sell signal.

See it in Tabmydata: crypto Fear and Greed Index · how to read it

An economic calendar lists scheduled macro releases and central bank decisions, each with a time, an impact level, a forecast, the previous figure and the actual figure once it prints.

Three names come up most. CPI is the consumer price index, a measure of inflation. FOMC is the US Federal Open Market Committee, which announces the interest rate decision. NFP is the US non-farm payrolls report on jobs. Traders check the calendar to see when each lands in their own time zone.

See it in Tabmydata: economic calendar for crypto · how to use the economic calendar

Funding rate is a periodic payment between long and short traders on a perpetual futures contract. It exists to keep the perpetual's price close to the spot price. When the rate is positive, longs pay shorts. When it is negative, shorts pay longs. The rate and how often it is paid depend on the exchange.

Spot means buying or selling the coin itself, settled at once. A futures contract is an agreement on a coin's price. A perpetual future, or perp, has no expiry date, can be traded with leverage and uses a funding rate to stay near the spot price.

The difference matters when you read liquidations. Spot markets have no liquidations, because there is no leverage to close. Leveraged futures do.

See it in Tabmydata: spot and futures order books (a book reads one market type at a time) · crypto liquidation tracker (futures markets only)

Market cap is the price of a coin times its circulating supply. Circulating supply is the number of coins in public hands now. FDV, fully diluted valuation, is the price times the maximum supply, as if every coin that will ever exist were already out. A big gap between market cap and FDV means a lot of supply is still to come.

None of these says what a coin is worth. They describe size and supply.

See it in Tabmydata: coin stats card with market cap, FDV, supply and all-time high · how to check a coin's market cap and supply