Alerta Chain Lab: 37 order-flow tools for crypto
Alerta Chain Lab is AlertaChart's own set of order-flow tools, built on what we record from Binance, Bybit, OKX, Coinbase and Hyperliquid: aggressive buying and selling, open interest, funding and liquidations, plus the order book and the options market.
Each tool is a pane under your chart or a layer on it, so you read who is buying, who is leveraged and who is getting liquidated next to the price itself. Open the order-flow toolbox from the chart toolbar; the tools are under Alerta Chain Lab.
Reading the flow
One score for the flow, who leads the move, where volume and time built up, and what open interest did in each candle.
Alerta Flow Score
One 0–100 reading of the flow. 50 is neutral; above it buyers lead, below it sellers. It weighs aggressive buying, spot leadership, open interest and funding.
How to read it
- Aggression 40%: taker buys against sells across all venues
- Spot leadership 20%: spot more eager than perpetuals
- Open-interest conviction 25%: new positions behind the price move
- Funding 15%, contrarian: when everyone is on one side the score drops
- Bands: 80+ very strong buying, 65+ strong buying, 55+ buying bias, 45–55 neutral, the selling side below
Spot / Perp Lead
Who drives the move: spot buyers and sellers, or leveraged traders on perpetuals. A rise carried by spot is usually sturdier.
How to read it
- Each market's aggression = (taker buys − taker sells) / volume, smoothed; the bar = spot − perp
- The colour names the most eager side: spot buying, leveraged buying, spot selling, leveraged selling
- Spot-led rises tend to hold; rises carried by leverage alone are exposed to liquidations
- Not drawn for coins without a spot market
Session Volume Profile
Volume by price for each day or week, with buyers and sellers split where the flow is recorded, the POC and the value area, and their developing lines through the session. It can also combine several days into one profile, draw the session's VWAP and mark its peaks and valleys (high- and low-volume nodes).
How to read it
- Where the flow is recorded, each row splits into buyers (green) and sellers (red)
- The yellow line is the POC (the most traded price), the dashed ones the value area (70% of the volume); the developing lines show how they moved as the session went on
- Built from finer candles than the chart's: where inside one candle it traded is unknown, so its volume is spread over its range
Delta Profile
Aggressive buying minus selling at each price over the candles in view, from a centre line at the right edge: where buyers or sellers pressed.
How to read it
- Right of the centre line at the right edge buyers led, left of it sellers
- The Δ on top is the net flow of the whole range in view
- From the order flow we record (taker buys and sells); not drawn on a market without recorded flow
TPO
The market profile: for each day or week, a letter for every 30 minutes at every price traded, with the POC, the value area and the first hour's range (initial balance). It can also draw the initial balance's extensions (IB ±50 % and ±100 %, up to ±200 %) with their prices, and split each day in two at a time you choose, the New York open by default.
How to read it
- The row price stayed at longest is the POC; the value area is 70% of the time
- The purple bar at the left is the initial balance: the range of the session's first hour
- When rows are too thin for letters, blocks are drawn instead
OI Regime
What positions did in each candle: new longs, shorts closing, new shorts or longs closing.
How to read it
- Price ↑ OI ↑ new longs · Price ↑ OI ↓ short covering · Price ↓ OI ↑ new shorts · Price ↓ OI ↓ longs closing
- Open interest in coins, summed over Binance, Bybit, OKX and Hyperliquid (Coinbase publishes once a day and is left out)
- Noise filter: bars under the typical change are drawn grey
Squeeze Risk
Whether fuel for a sharp squeeze is building: crowded funding, rising open interest and a tightening range. Below zero the risk is down, above zero up.
How to read it
- Above zero a short squeeze risk (shorts crowded, upside), below a long squeeze risk (longs crowded, downside)
- Weights: funding 40%, open-interest build-up 35%, compression 25%; build-up and compression rank against their own history
- With funding near neutral no side is crowded: the bar is grey and reads "Coil"
- Bars under the alert level are drawn faint
Venue Flow Share
Which exchange drives each candle's aggressive volume, and whether it bought or sold.
How to read it
- The bar is the leading venue's share, drawn in that venue's colour
- The reading lists every venue's share and direction: ▲ buyers led, ▼ sellers led
- Venues trading against each other (one ▲, one ▼) mean the move has little behind it
- Binance, Bybit, OKX, Coinbase and Hyperliquid; perpetuals and spot together
Aggressive buying and selling
Takers buying and selling: divergences from price, absorption, unusual candles and the buyers' share, like an RSI read from the flow.
Delta Divergence
Marks where price makes a new high or low and buying or selling does not follow.
How to read it
- Bearish: price made a higher high, CVD a lower high — buyers did not follow the new high (red segment)
- Bullish: price made a lower low, CVD a higher low — sellers did not follow the new low (green segment)
- A swing must beat N bars on each side, so a divergence is drawn N bars after its second swing
- The reading names the latest confirmed divergence and how many bars ago it was
Absorption
Big aggressive buying or selling that did not move the price: hidden support or resistance.
How to read it
- Score = the delta's size (against the bars before) × the part of the move that did not happen
- Above zero: aggressive selling absorbed by passive buyers (hidden support); below: aggressive buying absorbed by passive sellers (hidden resistance)
- Bars under the alert level are drawn faint
Delta Z-Score
How unusual each candle's buying minus selling is against the candles before it.
How to read it
- A bar is not part of its own yardstick; history never changes
- Beyond the alert level (2 by default) is unusual delta: last pushes and exhaustion at tops and bottoms
- Every venue, perpetuals and spot together
Aggressor Ratio
The buyers' share of aggressive volume from 0 to 100, like an RSI read from the flow.
How to read it
- 50 is balance; above, buyers lead; below, sellers; the 60/40 lines mark a strong lean
- An RSI read from actual trades, not from price
- The reading lists perpetuals and spot apart
Session CVD
Buying minus selling that starts again at the Asia, Europe and US sessions.
How to read it
- Daylight saving follows each city's own clock
- Shows which session bought and which sold; the bar's colour names the session
- On 1-hour and shorter charts
Average Trade Size
Volume per trade: big players stepping in, or a rush of small traders.
How to read it
- A growing average means big players stepping in; trades surging as the average shrinks, a retail rush
- The bar's colour is its delta: green buyers led, red sellers
- Venues count trades differently; compare a coin with its own history
Leverage and funding
How much leverage has piled up, what it costs, where positions opened and when big ones arrived at once.
Leverage Saturation
Open interest as a share of the coin's supply: how much leverage has piled up.
How to read it
- The line's colour is where the share stands in the coin's own history: top tenth red, the next fifth orange
- The more leverage piles up, the likelier a sharp flush
- Supply from CoinGecko data as of the date in the header; open interest summed over Binance, Bybit, OKX and Hyperliquid
Funding Cost
What longs or shorts pay per hour, in dollars, across the exchanges.
How to read it
- Above zero longs pay, below shorts pay; the reading adds the daily amount
- The side carrying an expensive position cannot hold it for long; when it gives up, price turns hard
- Binance, Bybit, OKX and Hyperliquid
Funding Spread
The gap between the highest and lowest funding rate, and on which exchanges.
How to read it
- The reading names the highest (▲) and lowest (▼) venue and their rates
- A wide gap means leverage piling up on one venue; arbitrage closes it
- Each venue's rate is converted from its own payment interval to 8 h
Net Position Flow
How fast estimated net longs and shorts change: who is opening positions now. It is an estimate.
How to read it
- Above zero net longs are being opened (or shorts closed), below the reverse
- The reading lists the NL and NS changes apart
- The same estimate as Agg. Net Long / Short; not positions reported by the venues
OI Spike
Candles where big positions opened or closed at once.
How to read it
- Beyond the alert level (3 by default) above zero: a big position opened at once; below: closed at once
- Reads best on short charts (1–5 minutes)
- Binance, Bybit, OKX and Hyperliquid
Leveraged Cost Basis
An estimate of the average price recent perpetual longs and shorts opened at, from open interest and aggressive buying and selling, and how far price is from each, in %: who is in profit and who is under water.
How to read it
- When open interest rises in a bar, the new positions go to longs and shorts in the share the takers bought and sold, at the bar's price; when it falls, selling comes off the longs and buying off the shorts
- The green line is the longs' profit or loss, the red one the shorts', in % of the position's value at entry (as on a USDT-margined perpetual); the readout gives both entry prices
- An estimate: no exchange publishes who opened where. The half-life setting slowly counts old positions as changed hands at the current price
- At the first candle the open interest is assumed half long, half short; the first three half-lives are not drawn while that assumption fades. With a half-life of 0 the start never fades, and the lines begin at the first candle
Liquidations
Chains of forced selling and buying, how much of the leverage a candle wiped out, and which side is in pain.
Liquidation Cascade
Chains of liquidations that speed up with price, and where they end, often near a short-term low or high.
How to read it
- A long-liquidation chain below zero, a short one above, in full colour; other bars faint
- When a chain ends the reading says "Cascade ended"; cascade ends are often short-term bottoms or tops
- The end is known when the next bar arrives; Binance, Bybit and OKX
Flush Ratio
Liquidations as a share of open interest: how much leverage a candle wiped out.
How to read it
- Shows how much of the leverage was wiped out; a big flush can be a healthy reset
- The colour names the side that dominated: long or short liquidations
- Liquidations from Binance, Bybit and OKX; open interest also from Hyperliquid
Liquidation Imbalance
Long against short liquidations, smoothed: which side is in pain.
How to read it
- Above zero longs are liquidated more, below shorts
- Shows which side is in pain and for how long
- Binance, Bybit and OKX
The whole market and options
The whole market at once, US spot demand, the gaps between exchanges, the squeeze radar and the options market.
Flow Breadth
The share of the 100 most traded perpetuals whose buyers led in each candle: a broad move or BTC alone. It is the same on every chart.
Coinbase Premium
Coinbase's dollar price against Binance's USDT price, with Coinbase's own buying and selling: a read of US spot demand.
Exchange Spread
Each exchange's price against the median of Binance, Bybit and OKX perpetuals and Binance and Coinbase spot, in basis points: where buyers pay up and how far apart the exchanges are.
How to read it
- A line above zero is an exchange where buyers pay more, below zero one that trades cheaper
- The readout gives the widest gap and the two exchanges at its ends; the settings can compare with Binance's perpetual instead of the median
- Coinbase's dollar price is put in USDT with USDT-USD, and contracts like 1000PEPE are read per coin
- Spot lines sitting steadily a little above or below the perpetuals is the basis (the perpetuals' premium or discount to spot), not a gap between exchanges
- Only closed candles are drawn: inside a forming candle each exchange's last price is read at a different moment
- An exchange sends no candle for a minute without trades: its last close stands for up to 5 candles, a longer gap leaves it out
Squeeze Radar
The 60 most traded perpetuals ranked by squeeze risk. Tap a row to open its chart.
Volume Heat Hours
When the coin trades: the average hourly volume and the buyers' share for each weekday and hour over the last 30 or 90 days, in your time or UTC.
Options Levels
The call wall, put wall, max pain, gamma flip and expected move from Deribit, OKX, Bybit and Binance options, as lines on your chart.
Options Levels can read the expiry settling next alone (0DTE), the nearest one a day or more out, the next 30 days or every expiry: choose in its settings.
Greek Exposure
The dealers' gamma, vanna or charm at each strike from the same options venues, as bars at the right edge of your chart; the total at the top.
How to read it
- Gamma: how much their delta changes on a 1% move; positive gamma damps moves, negative gamma adds to them
- Vanna: per volatility point; Charm: per day with the price unchanged
- The sign is Options Levels': calls +, puts − (customers buy puts and sell calls); the expiries are in the settings
IV Rank
Where the options' implied volatility (Deribit's DVOL) stands in its past year, from 0 at the year's low to 100 at its high. BTC and ETH.
How to read it
- 80 or above: options at the dearest of their year; 20 or below: the cheapest
- The readout also shows DVOL (IV) and the last 30 days' realized volatility (RV)
- BTC and ETH only: DVOL is published for these two; each candle shows what was known when it closed
Variance Risk Premium
Implied volatility minus the last 30 days' realized volatility: above zero, options price more movement than the coin has had. BTC and ETH.
How to read it
- Above zero options price more movement than the coin has had, below less
- Realized volatility from Binance daily closes, annualised (365 days)
- BTC and ETH only
On the order-book heatmap
Layers of the recorded order book: big orders and spoofing, icebergs, depth, which side is heavier and what a large order would cost.
Walls & Spoofing
Big resting orders and what became of them: filled, pulled, or pulled just as price came near.
Iceberg Detector
Price levels that traded far more than they ever showed while refilling: a hidden buyer or seller.
Liquidity Depth
The buy and sell orders within 0.25% to 1% of the price, in dollars, over time: what it takes to move the price.
Book Pressure
Which side of the order book is heavier within the same band: buy orders below the price against sell orders above it, from −100% to +100%, over time.
Impact Cost
What a market order of $100K, $1M or $10M would pay against the mid price, buying and selling, in basis points, over time: how deep the book really is.
Plans
Chain Lab comes with the Pro and Elite plans, with the order-flow toolbox, the order-book heatmap and Pro Lab.
Questions about Chain Lab
What is Alerta Chain Lab?
AlertaChart's own set of 37 order-flow tools: panes under the chart and layers on its order-book heatmap that read aggressive buying and selling, open interest, funding, liquidations, the order book and options.
Which exchanges does it read?
Binance, Bybit, OKX, Coinbase and Hyperliquid. Liquidations come from Binance, Bybit and OKX, because Coinbase and Hyperliquid publish none; the heatmap tools work on the most traded Binance markets, where the order book is recorded.
Which plans include Chain Lab?
Pro and Elite, together with the rest of the order-flow toolbox and Pro Lab.
Which markets does it work on?
Crypto: coins on spot and perpetual futures. Some tools read fixed sources whatever the chart: Coinbase Premium, Flow Breadth and Exchange Spread.
Do the panes repaint?
No. A closed candle never changes later: each candle reads only itself and the candles before it.
What is order flow?
The record of who traded aggressively: buyers lifting the ask and sellers hitting the bid, with the open interest, funding and liquidations around them. Chain Lab turns it into readings next to the price.
What is the Coinbase premium?
The gap between Bitcoin's US dollar price on Coinbase and its USDT price on Binance. A rising premium is usually read as US spot buyers paying up; the Coinbase Premium pane shows it with Coinbase's own buying and selling.
Is any tool a buy or sell signal?
No. No tool is a signal on its own: read them together with the price.
See the flow behind the price
Open the order-flow toolbox on your chart and add the first Chain Lab pane.