Absorption and imbalance, found for you.
Imbalance marking and absorption detection are free on Basis, with no account and no trial. Both are computed from real aggressor data in your browser, and both show you the working rather than only the conclusion.
What you get
- Buy and sell imbalances marked on the footprint at a ratio you set, defaulting to three to one
- Stacked imbalances — several consecutive levels leaning the same way — highlighted as a zone rather than as separate rows
- A minimum-volume filter, so a three-to-one imbalance between two tiny rows is not dressed up as an event
- Presets for tighter or looser detection, so the same chart can be read strictly or generously without editing numbers by hand
- Absorption candidates found on the live tape, each showing the notional that traded rather than only a percentage
Why this is usually paid for
Imbalance and absorption detection is what separates an order flow platform from a chart that happens to show volume. Computing it needs trade-at-price data with aggressor flags, which is heavier than candles and is the usual justification for putting the whole category on the top tier.
Basis already loads that tape into your browser for the footprint, so detection is arithmetic on data that is sitting there anyway. There is no server doing work per user and therefore no cost that a subscription would be covering.
How to use it
- 1
Open the footprint and turn on imbalances
The button below opens the terminal on the volume footprint. Imbalance marking is part of the footprint settings, along with the ratio and the minimum volume a row needs before it can qualify. Start with the defaults and tighten from there.
- 2
Treat stacked imbalances as zones
A single imbalanced row is noise more often than not. Several consecutive rows leaning the same way marks a stretch of price the market moved through without a fight, and those stretches tend to matter when price comes back to them.
- 3
Check absorption candidates against the price that followed
The Signals tab lists places where aggressive volume concentrated at one price without moving it. That is a candidate, not a conclusion. What makes it real is what happened next — absorption that mattered is followed by a move away from the level.
- 4
Read the notional, not the strength
Concentration at a single price over two seconds is almost always one-sided, so that percentage reads near a hundred on nearly every candidate and tells you very little. The size that traded is what separates a level that took two million from one that took twenty thousand.
Questions
What counts as an imbalance on the footprint?+
A price level where volume on one side outweighs the diagonal opposite by at least the ratio you set, defaulting to three to one, and where the row itself carries enough volume to be worth marking. Both numbers are yours to change, because what is meaningful on a quiet altcoin is noise on Bitcoin.
How is absorption detected?+
By looking for prices where aggressive volume concentrated inside a short window without price making progress, restricted to the heaviest such clusters on the tape rather than every one. It is a modelled signal derived from real aggressor trades, and Basis labels it as a candidate rather than as a fact.
Are these signals free, or a preview of a paid version?+
Free, in full, with no account and no trial. There is no paid tier on Basis, so there is no stronger version of this detection being held back — the thresholds are exposed to you precisely because there is nothing to upsell by hiding them.
Should I trade a stacked imbalance on its own?+
No, and any tool that implies otherwise is selling confidence rather than information. An imbalance says the market moved through a price aggressively. Whether that matters depends on where it sits relative to structure, and the honest use is as a filter on a level you already cared about.
Why do the marks change when I change the tick grouping?+
Because imbalance is measured between adjacent rows, and grouping several ticks into one row changes what adjacent means. A coarser grouping produces fewer, larger rows and therefore fewer imbalances. Neither view is wrong; they are answering the question at different resolutions.
Open it and see
The chart opens with this already turned on. Nothing to configure, nothing to sign up for.
Open the chartAlso free
Updated 2026-09-05 · All free tools · Indicator reference · Documentation · Terminal