How to read a footprint chart (and stop guessing who is in control).
Optiom Research · runnable code, tested against the live API
A candle tells you where price went. A footprint tells you who pushed it there. Each candle is split into price levels, and each level shows the volume that traded at the bid (aggressive sellers) versus at the ask (aggressive buyers). This tutorial covers the three patterns worth trading and how to check them live in the Optiom Order Flow terminal.
What each cell tells you
A cell reads bid x ask, e.g. 120 x 460: 120 sold into the bid, 460 bought at the ask at that price. A diagonal imbalance of 3:1 or more marks one side steamrolling the other. The bar delta (total ask volume minus bid volume) summarizes the fight: positive delta with rising price is a healthy uptrend; strongly negative delta while price holds flat means someone is absorbing the selling.
The three patterns that matter
Absorption: heavy volume at one level, price refuses to break — a large passive player is loading up; expect a reversal from that level. Initiative: consecutive stacked imbalances in one direction — new aggressive money entering, follow it. Exhaustion: volume dries up at the extreme of a move (thin prints at the top of a rally) — the last buyers are in, the move is done. Everything else on the footprint is noise.
Check it live in Optiom
Open the Order Flow terminal (requires a signed-in account), pick BTCUSDT on 5m, and watch a session: find one absorption at a level, then check what price did next. The footprint uses the same normalized trade feed as the /trades API endpoint, so anything you spot visually can be backtested with the whale prints tutorial.
Run it on your own data.
Create a free account for CSV exports, then move to API access as your workflow grows.