Guide · Basics
What Is an Order Book?
Behind every price you see on a chart is a live list of exactly who's willing to trade at what price, right now. That list is the order book.
An order book is the live list of all outstanding buy (bid) and sell (ask) orders for an asset on a given exchange, organized by price. It shows exactly how much demand exists at each price level below the current price, and how much supply exists at each level above it.
The order book is where a trade actually happens: when an incoming buy order's price matches an existing sell order already sitting in the book (or vice versa), the exchange executes a trade between them. The single "price" shown on a chart is really just the most recent point where a buyer and seller in the order book agreed.
Reading the order book, not just the last price, can reveal information a simple price chart doesn't show — like whether there's a large cluster of sell orders sitting just above the current price, which could act as resistance if the price approaches it, since that supply would need to be absorbed first.
Order book depth and dynamics matter most in fast-moving, high-frequency trading — for most traders using Trade2Spike's Spot Trading mode, the key takeaway is simpler: the price you trade at reflects real supply and demand meeting in real time, not an arbitrary number.