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Microstructure guide

Order-Book Imbalance, Explained

Order-book imbalance measures how one-sided the resting liquidity is — more bids than asks (buy pressure) or more asks than bids (sell pressure). It is the base layer of vyx’s heatmap.

The intuition

At any moment the book has buyers resting bids below the price and sellers resting asks above it. Imbalance just asks: which side is heavier? More resting bids than asks means demand is stacked up (buy pressure); more asks means supply is stacked (sell pressure). Green for bid-heavy, red for ask-heavy — and the further from balanced, the brighter.

−100 · all askall bid · +100
+58 Bid pressure
100.05
100.04
100.03
100.02
100.01
bid sizeask size
● auto

Tap a scenario — or let it cycle — and watch the imbalance read swing from −100 (all asks) to +100 (all bids).

Order-book imbalance
imb = (bidVol − askVol) / (bidVol + askVol) × 100

Ranges from −100 (only asks) to +100 (only bids); 0 is balanced. vyx computes it across ten depth buckets (l1…l10), so you can read near-touch pressure separately from deep-book pressure.

How vyx uses it
live
variable imb
absImb >= 55

This is the primary number vyx paints — imb colors every cell of the live heatmap across 300+ Hyperliquid markets. You also get each depth bucket (l1…l10) and the cumulative view, so a signal can target near-touch or deep-book pressure specifically.

See it on the live map
Worked example
  1. 1 A pair sits at a support level with bids stacking across several depth levels.
  2. 2 Imbalance reads strongly positive (green) — demand is leaning in.
  3. 3 You wait for price to confirm (hold and tick up) rather than trading the colour alone.
Read it as context, not a trigger

Imbalance is context, not a standalone prediction. A cluster of green cells that persists is far stronger than one bright cell, and big resting orders can be spoofs that vanish before they trade — so confirm with price and flow before acting.

Further reading

Related

order flow imbalancemicropricethe signal modelliquidity sweepsmarket microstructurecrypto heatmaphyperliquid order book heatmapimbalance trading signals

FAQ

Is order-book imbalance a trading signal by itself?

No. It is best used as context that points your attention toward the symbols worth inspecting — strongest when a cluster persists and price confirms.

Why show imbalance as a heatmap?

A heatmap compresses many symbols and time into one surface, so you can compare persistence, clustering, and relative strength across the whole market at a glance.

What is the difference between order-book imbalance and order-flow imbalance?

Order-book imbalance is the static snapshot of how lopsided the book is. Order-flow imbalance (OFI) is the flow of changes — bids and asks being added or pulled over time.

See it on the live map

Scan order-book pressure across 300+ Hyperliquid markets in real time.

Open vyx