What CVD adds up
Binance futures · BTCUSDT · FlowMap Chart
CVD is a running sum. A candle is not. The candle keeps the close. The sum keeps who hit.
CVD (cumulative volume delta) adds market-buy size and subtracts market-sell size, print after print, across the window on the chart. Line up means more size lifted the ask. Line down means more size hit the bid.
This note is that arithmetic, and why a BTCUSDT candle has nowhere to put it. The cases where the line and price disagree are a different drill. They live in Learn. This page stops at the sum.
What goes into the sum
One slice has its own delta. The line is those slices added up.
Delta = market buys − market sells.
CVD now = CVD before + that delta.
A market buy lifts the ask. That size is added. A market sell hits the bid. That size is subtracted. The limit on the other side of the trade was already sitting. CVD does not add it again. One trade, one sign.
That sign is the pressure. A positive CVD means market buys were larger. Buying pressure was stronger, so the line is up. A negative CVD means market sells were larger. Selling pressure was stronger, so the line is down.
The sign says who hit more. It does not say the next price. A positive sum can sit there while the close goes nowhere.
Five prints
Start the line at 0. Five BTCUSDT prints, in order:
| Hit | Size | Price | CVD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Market buy | 2.0 | 84,000 | +2.0 |
| 2 | Market buy | 1.5 | 84,010 | +3.5 |
| 3 | Market sell | 4.0 | 83,990 | −0.5 |
| 4 | Market sell | 0.5 | 83,980 | −1.0 |
| 5 | Market buy | 3.0 | 84,000 | +2.0 |
Volume is 2.0 + 1.5 + 4.0 + 0.5 + 3.0 = 11 BTC. CVD is +2.0. The candle of those five prints opens at 84,000 and closes at 84,000. High 84,010. Low 83,980. It looks like a doji with 11 BTC of volume.
The line did not sit at +2 the whole time. It went to +3.5, then to −1.0, then back to +2.0. The candle has no place for that path. It only keeps the close.
Three minutes, one line
A candle starts over every minute. CVD does not. Each minute has its own delta. The line adds that delta to whatever was already there.
| Minute | Market buys | Market sells | Delta | CVD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 | 3 | +5 | +5 |
| 2 | 2 | 6 | −4 | +1 |
| 3 | 4 | 4 | 0 | +1 |
Minute 1: 8 − 3 = +5. The line moves from 0 to +5.
Minute 2: 2 − 6 = −4. That candle’s own delta is −4. The line is not −4. It is +5 + (−4) = +1. Sellers won that minute. The window is still net buying, by 1 BTC.
Minute 3: 4 − 4 = 0. Eight BTC changed hands. CVD stays +1. Volume on that candle is 8. The sum does not move.
Add the three minutes as one candle and you get volume 27 and a close somewhere in the range. You still cannot see +5, then +1. The running total is the thing the bar threw away.
The line on this window
The chart below is BTCUSDT on FlowMap Chart. The strip under the time axis is CVD. The card on the right is the same sum, as a number.
More size lifted the ask than hit the bid, by about 41 BTC, and the price did not run off with it. The close of that window is a small story. The sum is not.
A candle of the same stretch still prints one open, one close, and a volume number that adds both sides. It has no place for +41.19. If you only have the bar, you cannot tell that the hits were mostly market buys.
The line and the close are allowed to disagree. Keeping the sum is how you see that. The patterns for those disagreements are the Learn drill linked above, not this note.
What never enters the sum
Limits that are only sitting do not move CVD. A bright band on the heat is size waiting on the book. Waiting is not a print. If that size pulls and nobody hits it, the heat changes and CVD does not.
COB (the current order book) is the bids and asks standing right now. A big bid can sit there and never trade. CVD stays put until a market order actually takes size.
The circles on the heat are those hits, one at a time. Green is a market buy. Red is a market sell. CVD is the same hits added up, instead of drawn as circles.
VOL is the same trades without the sign
VOL under the heat is how much traded in each slice of time. Buys and sells both count. A busy minute is a tall bar whether the hits were buys or sells.
CVD uses those same prints and keeps the sign. A run of market buys lifts the line. A run of market sells pulls it down. VOL can be tall in both. Only CVD says which one it was.
What this picture is not
Not a setup. Not a reason to buy because the line is up. Not every Bitcoin exchange. Not a map of one candle’s inside.
It is the running sum of market buys and market sells on Binance futures BTCUSDT. ETH and BNB use the same line, with their own size. For learning only — not financial advice.
What else a candle drops is in what BTCUSDT candles don’t show. The rest of the chart labels are in how to read the FlowMap Chart on BTCUSDT.
Watch the CVD line on FlowMap Chart · BTCUSDT. The book next to it is on Desk.