BTC Perpetual Orderbook Depth Imbalance
How lopsided the waiting orders are on the Binance BTCUSDT perpetual, within 1% of the current price. Above zero means more money is queued to buy than to sell; below zero the reverse. This is intent, not action — traders can pull these orders in an instant. One reading per day, starting 13 August 2026.
An order book is the queue of orders waiting to be filled: offers to buy sitting below the current price, offers to sell sitting above it. Each time we read that queue we add up the **money** (price × size) waiting to buy within 1% below the middle price and the money waiting to sell within 1% above, then work out `(buy money − sell money) ÷ (buy money + sell money)`.
**+1 would mean the queue is nothing but buyers, −1 nothing but sellers, 0 an even match.** We count money rather than coins, so a wall of cheap size cannot outweigh a larger dollar commitment on the other side.
**A "sample" is one such reading of the book.** We take one about every hour, and the chart plots the **average of that day's samples**, because a single reading is noise. The number of samples behind each day is drawn as its own line, so a thinly-read day cannot pass as a well-read one: since 13 August 2026 there have been 527 samples across 23 days, about 23 a day.
Persistent **positive** readings mean buyers are queuing under the market while sellers are not queuing above it. Persistent **negative** readings mean the opposite. **The value is in the runs, not in any single day.**
For example, the reading for 4 September 2026 is **+0.033, averaged from 15 samples that day** — slightly more money waiting to buy than to sell, close enough to zero to call the book balanced. A day at +0.30 would mean nearly twice as much money queued to buy as to sell.
Watch it against price: **imbalance turning while price has not** is the case worth noticing.
About once an hour a small job asks Binance for the current order book of the BTCUSDT perpetual (the top 1,000 price levels on each side), keeps only the orders within 1% of the middle price, and stores one number — `(buy money − sell money) ÷ (buy money + sell money)` — with the time it was read.
At the end of each day those stored readings are **averaged into one point**, and the **count of readings is stored beside it**. Nothing is filled in for an hour we missed: that day simply shows fewer samples.
**The series starts on 13 August 2026, the day we began reading the book, and no earlier history exists — not here, and not for sale anywhere.** Binance publishes only the order book as it stands right now; nobody keeps yesterday's. This chart can only grow forward, one day at a time.
Waiting orders are **not commitments**. They can be cancelled a second later, and some are placed with no intention of ever being filled. Treat this as pressure, never as a promise.
One venue and one contract — the Binance BTCUSDT perpetual. It is the deepest book of its kind, but it is not the whole market.
A day built from a handful of readings is weaker evidence than a day built from a full 24. **The sample count is on the chart** so you can tell the two apart.
Binance USD-M futures public order book (fapi /depth, limit 1000), read by Safu about once an hour and averaged into one point per calendar day · stored since 13 August 2026 · no vendor, no backfill
Binance USD-M futures order book (fapi /depth, limit 1000), read by us about once an hour and averaged into one point per day · 1 point/day since 13 August 2026 · no earlier history exists anywhere