Trading

Besides the last traded price and best bid and ask price, the Order Book on Bybit reveals important information about market depth.

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On the Bybit trading interface, to the right of the trading chart, you can find the Order Book.

Besides the last traded price and best bid and ask price, the Order Book reveals important information about market depth.

Market depth measures the volume of limit orders in real time. It represents the trading platform’s ability to sustain relatively large market orders without impacting the price; it is one of the key indicators of liquidity.

The greater the market depth, the smaller the market impact of a large market order, and thus less likely the chance of the price being manipulated.

For example: Ann plans to buy 5,000 BTCUSD contracts by market order. The best ask prices on both exchange A and B are 9,200. However, the two platforms demonstrate different market depths.

 To fulfill the 5,000 contracts, Ann would need to purchase 1,000 contracts at $9,200, $9,300, $9,400, $9,500 and $9,600 respectively. In short, she would be spending $5,000 to purchase 0.532 BTC in total. When Ann’s order is filled, the best ask price will be pushed up to $9,700.

 There are 10,000 BTCUSD sell orders at the best ask price of $9,200. Ann’s order can easily be fulfilled at this price. In other words, Ann would be spending $5,000 to purchase 0.543 BTC. When Ann’s order is filled, the best ask price remains at $9,200.

With better market depth on exchange B, Ann enjoys a lower trading cost (more BTC purchased for the same amount of USD) and exerts less price impact on other traders.

The Order Book shows how many limit orders are active at each price level at the current moment.

Taking the BTCUSD contract as an example, you can find the following information from its order book.

By clicking the zoom icon (5) at the upper right corner, you can have a more granular review the Order Book.

If Ann wants to sell 1,000,000 BTCUSD contracts by market order, her order will be executed gradually from the best bid price of $9,264 to the 3rd best bid price of $9,262.50. The last traded price and best bid price will both be updated to $9,262.50 after Ann’s order is filled.

As mentioned, you can have a quick review of the current market depth and estimate the filled price of a market order. 

In addition, you can also gauge whether the buy side or sell side has stronger momentum by reading the order book. If the order quantity on the buy side is significantly larger than that of the sell side, especially on the best bid/ask price level, it suggests stronger momentum from the buy side, and that the BTC price is likely to rise. Similarly, if the order quantity on the sell side is significantly larger, it suggests stronger momentum from the sell side. Of course, as the order book moves in real time and even jumps dramatically, you have to monitor it closely to understand the subtle price trend.

Order Book Explained for Beginners

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