Leverage & trading · 5 min read · Live · hourly Binance

Taker buy/sell ratio: who is crossing the spread?

One-minute answer: The taker buy/sell ratio compares aggressive market buys with aggressive market sells. Above 1 means buyers crossed the spread for more volume; below 1 means sellers did. SafuTrading measures Binance Bitcoin futures each hour.

What it actually means

A maker leaves an order waiting in the book. A taker accepts the price already waiting and causes a trade immediately. The ratio compares the taker-buy volume with taker-sell volume.

This is completed trading, unlike an order-wall heatmap that shows resting orders. It tells you which side was more aggressive during the hour, not who made money afterward.

What to look for

Above 1.0 — Aggressive buy volume exceeded aggressive sell volume during that hour.
Below 1.0 — Aggressive sell volume exceeded aggressive buy volume.
Far from 1 with high volume — The imbalance happened during meaningful activity and deserves more attention.
Far from 1 with tiny volume — A dramatic ratio on little trading can be noise.

Worked example

A ratio of 1.30 with $900 million total hourly volume means aggressive buy volume was about 30% larger than aggressive sell volume during that completed Binance futures hour.

What this cannot tell you

Every completed trade still has both a buyer and a seller; taker labels describe who crossed the spread.
The chart covers Binance futures, not all spot and derivatives venues.
Aggressive buying can be absorbed by large resting sell orders, so price may not rise.

Data source

Binance Bitcoin futures taker-buy and total-volume data, grouped into completed hourly points.

Open Taker Buy/Sell Ratio — Hourly aggressive buy volume divided by aggressive sell volume, with total traded volume.