Hello Hive users! I hope you’re all doing well. In today’s lesson of my spot trading course, I’ll be talking about Market Depth & Order Books.
Market Depth & Order Books
At first, I thought a "order book" was just a boring technical chart that only professional traders cared about. But when I learned how it works, I saw that it's like an X-ray of the market that shows you where the price might go next.
I only looked at charts to decide what trades to make when I was new. I bought BTC for $25,100 once, thinking the price would keep going up. But at $25,300, there was a huge wall of selling. The price hit that wall and fell right away. I would have waited or chosen a different strategy if I had looked at the order book first.
In the end
The order book and market depth show you what's really going on in the market, which regular price charts often don't. Start using these tools if you really want to trade. They will help you make smarter trades and avoid losing money you don't need to.
Today, I'll explain what market depth and order books are in plain, everyday language and how they can help you make better trading choices.
Order Book – The Market’s To-Do List
There is a live list of all the buy and sell orders that traders have placed but haven't yet completed.
There are two sides to it:
Bids (Buy orders) are the people who want to buy a coin and how much they are willing to pay.
Asks (Sell orders) – People who want to sell a coin, and the price they want for it.
Example
If BTC is priced at $110,000 and you see a lot of buy orders stacked at $109,800, that could be a strong support level.
Market Depth – How Deep is the Pool?
Market depth is basically a visual chart version of the order book.
It tells you how much liquidity the market has — meaning how easy or hard it is to execute large trades without moving the price too much.
Deep market: High liquidity, even big trades won’t move the price much.
Shallow market: Low liquidity, even small trades can push the price up or down sharply.
Why This Matters
The order book shows you where the big buyers or sellers are. These can act as strong support or resistance zones.
Avoiding Traps
Sometimes you think the price will keep rising, but a huge sell wall is sitting above it, ready to block the move.
Better Entry & Exit
By looking at market depth, you can place smarter orders, get better fills, and avoid big slippage.
Spotting Support & Resistance
The order book shows you where the big buyers or sellers are. These can act as strong support or resistance zones.
Avoiding Traps
Sometimes you think the price will keep rising, but a huge sell wall is sitting above it, ready to block the move.
Better Entry & Exit
By looking at market depth, you can place smarter orders, get better fills, and avoid big slippage.
I only looked at charts to decide what trades to make when I was new. I bought BTC for $25,100 once, thinking the price would keep going up. But at $25,300, there was a huge wall of selling. The price hit that wall and fell right away. I would have waited or chosen a different strategy if I had looked at the order book first.
In the end
The order book and market depth show you what's really going on in the market, which regular price charts often don't. Start using these tools if you really want to trade. They will help you make smarter trades and avoid losing money you don't need to.