Definition
Every trade has an aggressor: the side that crossed the spread. A taker buy is a market (or marketable) buy that lifts a resting ask; a taker sell hits a resting bid. The resting side is the maker (see maker and taker). Taker buy volume is the volume of trades where the buyer was the aggressor.
Taker buy/sell ratio = taker buy volume ÷ taker sell volume. A ratio of 1.0 is balanced, above 1 means buy-aggressor volume was larger, below 1 means sell-aggressor volume was larger. The site reads a ratio within 3% of 1 as balanced.
Where the numbers come from
Binance publishes kline data with a "taker buy quote asset volume" field next to total quote volume. The site derives sells = quote volume − taker buy volume, then ratio = buys ÷ sells. Binance also publishes a Taker Buy/Sell Volume statistics endpoint for its USD-M futures. Bybit's public trade stream and Hyperliquid's trade subscription flag each trade's side, so volume can be summed by side.
The screener sums 1-minute bars with a taker split from Binance, Bybit and Hyperliquid over 1h, 4h and 24h windows; the per-coin pages add exchange detail and history.
Worked example (synthetic)
Illustrative numbers, not live data. In one window, takers buy $60M and sell $40M. Ratio = 60M ÷ 40M = 1.50, and net taker delta = 60M − 40M = +20M. The taker buy share is 60M ÷ 100M = 60%. Every trade still has exactly one buyer and one seller: the ratio measures who initiated, not who won.
Ratio vs CVD vs long/short ratio
| Metric | What it measures | Shape |
|---|---|---|
| Taker buy/sell ratio | Aggressive buy volume ÷ aggressive sell volume | Snapshot for one window |
| CVD | Running sum of taker buys − taker sells | Cumulative line in dollars |
| Long/short ratio | Accounts or positions long vs short | Positioning, not traded volume |
Limits
- The aggressor flag is defined by each exchange, so the same market can read differently across venues.
- Spot and perpetual futures trade differently; mixing them blends different participants.
- Wash trading and market-maker order routing add volume on both sides and can distort small coins.
- The window matters: a 1h ratio can flip while the 24h ratio barely moves.
- When nothing was sold (sells = 0) or there is no volume, the ratio is undefined and the site shows "n/a".
- Taker volume shows urgency, not intent: a short closing with a market buy counts the same as a new long. It is not a forecast and not financial advice.
Checked against the exchanges' own documentation on 17 October 2026: Binance API: kline/candlestick data · Bybit API: public trade stream · Hyperliquid API: websocket subscriptions. Not financial advice.