Absorption and imbalance, found for you.
Free on Basis, without an account: stacked imbalances, price/delta disagreement and repeated aggressive trading with little forward progress. Locate the parts of the auction worth investigating with measured inputs and explicit detection rules. These are observations and candidates, not entry instructions or probabilities of profit.
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 with repeated prints, notional, observation duration and measured forward price progress
- Closed-bar delta disagreement and swing divergence confirmed by two closed right-hand bars; forming bars do not produce confirmed marks
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.
Core crypto detection is free. Configure footprint rows, imbalance thresholds, volume filters and divergence visibility to suit the instrument. Changing row grouping changes the comparison, so keep the settings consistent when reviewing examples.
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
Several consecutive imbalances identify concentrated aggressive flow. Review the zone against market structure and the subsequent response; it does not prove that price will hold there on a retest.
- 3
Check absorption candidates against the price that followed
The Signals tab checks completed short tape windows for repeated, concentrated aggression with limited forward price progress. Inspect the level and the price action that follows. A candidate can fail, and it does not identify a hidden order.
- 4
Read the notional, not the strength
The side-share percentage measures how one-sided the observed flow was; it is not a probability of success. Compare notional, repeated prints, duration and price progress. A small quiet-market cluster and a large Bitcoin cluster do not carry the same context.
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?+
The live-tape detector examines completed two-second windows in its bounded recent input. A candidate needs at least three prints spanning at least 500ms, a heavy notional cluster, at least 78% one-sided flow and no more than one basis point of forward price progress during the observation. Truncated windows and reconnect boundaries are excluded. It is an inference, not proof of hidden liquidity.
When does a delta-divergence marker become available?+
A bar disagreement waits for that candle to close. A swing divergence needs a confirmed pivot, including two closed bars to its right. The mark is drawn at the pivot, but was not known there in real time. The controls report the confirming bar; these marks must not be treated as signals available at the historical pivot time.
Are these signals free, or a preview of a paid version?+
The order-flow detection and its thresholds are free, with no account or trial required for the live chart. Optional Founders membership adds separate research tools, not a second version of these signals.
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 chartLearn what you are looking at
Each of these explains the calculation this platform actually performs, and where the reading misleads.
Or ask your AI, on live data
Also free
Updated 2026-10-12 · All free tools · AI guides · Indicator reference · Documentation · Terminal