Taker Buy/Sell Ratio

Glossary · Derivatives

The taker buy/sell ratio divides aggressive buy volume by aggressive sell volume over a window — takers are the orders that cross the spread and hit resting liquidity. Above 1 the market is being lifted; below 1 it is being hit. It measures urgency of flow, not the size of positions.

"Makers wait, takers pay up. When takers are 1.3 to 1 for a whole day, someone wants in badly enough to keep crossing the spread."

A ratio of 1.2 over 24 hours means roughly six aggressive buy dollars for every five aggressive sell dollars. Read alone it is noisy — one large market order skews an hour — which is why the useful number is volume-weighted across the day rather than an average of hourly ratios. It complements the long/short ratios: those say who is positioned, this says who is acting.

The tell is disagreement. Takers net selling into a crowd that is 65% long means the longs are being distributed into; takers net buying while the crowd is short and top traders are long is the profile of a short squeeze forming. Sustained taker buying with price going nowhere is absorption — someone is selling into every bid — and that stalls before it breaks either way.

Taker flow next to positioning

Related jargon

Questions

What is Taker Buy/Sell Ratio in crypto trading?

The taker buy/sell ratio divides aggressive buy volume by aggressive sell volume over a window — takers are the orders that cross the spread and hit resting liquidity. Above 1 the market is being lifted; below 1 it is being hit. It measures urgency of flow, not the size of positions.

How would a trader say it?

Makers wait, takers pay up. When takers are 1.3 to 1 for a whole day, someone wants in badly enough to keep crossing the spread.

Part of the Crypto Jargon glossary — every term, decoded the way a trader would say it.

Crypto Jargon

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