The intuition
The tape is the rawest view of a market: every trade as it prints, with its size and aggressor side. Reading it is reading intent — a burst of large buys lifting offers is different from steady small selling, even if the candle looks the same. Tape reading is the original order-flow skill; vyx scales it from one tape you watch to 300+ tapes scored at once.
What to read on the tape
Four things separate signal from noise:
- Aggressor side — are trades lifting the offer (buyers) or hitting the bid (sellers)? That’s CVD.
- Size — the largest single prints (whales) versus a stream of small ones.
- Speed and runs — long runs of same-side trades (sweeps) show urgency.
- Reaction — does price move on the flow, or absorb it? Flow that doesn’t move price is the tell.
buyRun >= highest(buyRun, 30) || sellRun >= highest(sellRun, 30) vyx reads the tape for you across the venue: aggressor balance (cvd/cvdHigh/cvdLow), the largest same-side runs (buyRun/sellRun, sweeps), and the biggest single prints (tradeMaxBuy/tradeMaxSell, whales). The example surfaces markets where the tape just hit a 30-candle aggression extreme.
Further reading
Related
FAQ
What is tape reading?
Watching the live stream of executed trades — the tape — to judge pressure and intent in real time from the size, speed, and aggressor side of each print, rather than waiting for a chart to confirm.
Is tape reading still useful in crypto?
Yes — the tape is just executed order flow, and crypto perps have a rich one. The challenge is scale: vyx reads the tape across 300+ markets at once (CVD, sweeps, prints) instead of one symbol at a time.
What is the difference between tape reading and the order book?
The order book is resting intentions (limit orders that can be cancelled); the tape is executed reality (trades that actually printed). Reading them together — displayed liquidity versus what trades — is the core of order flow.
See it on the live map
Scan order-book pressure across 300+ Hyperliquid markets in real time.
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