Bookmap Basics: What It Is and How It Works
Bookmap is a heatmap-based order flow platform that shows liquidity, market orders, and depth of market in a way a normal chart never will. If you’ve never used it, it looks overwhelming at first. This guide strips it down so you understand what you’re actually looking at and why traders use it.
What Bookmap Actually Shows
Bookmap visualizes three things in real time:
- Liquidity – resting limit orders in the order book
- Aggressive market orders – the trades actually executed
- Order book changes – liquidity appearing, disappearing, shifting
Traditional charts only show price. Bookmap shows why price is moving.
The Heatmap (The Core of Bookmap)
This is the colored background on the chart. It represents liquidity.
| Color | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Bright yellow/white | Large resting liquidity (heavy limit orders) |
| Orange/red | Medium liquidity |
| Dark/black | Low or no liquidity |
Price is magnetized toward large liquidity zones. That’s why the heatmap is valuable.
Volume Bubbles (Executed Orders)
The circles that appear on the chart show actual trades.
- Size = volume
- Color = aggressive buyer vs seller
If you see massive red bubbles, sellers are hitting bids aggressively. Blue bubbles = buyers slamming into the ask.
Order Book Columns
The vertical columns next to price show:
- Depth – how many resting orders at each price
- Cumulative volume
- Imbalance
- Recent transactions
This is the raw order book data built into the platform.
Why Traders Use Bookmap
Bookmap helps you see:
- Absorption – big players absorbing market orders
- Icebergs – hidden orders repeatedly refilling
- Liquidity shifts – market makers adjusting their levels
- Large buyer/seller aggression
- Fake liquidity (spoofing)
This information helps spot reversals, traps, and strong continuation levels.
Heatmap Example Breakdown
Here’s a simple way to read a heatmap scenario:
- Market rallies into a bright yellow zone → heavy liquidity above
- Sellers slam into it → large red bubbles
- Liquidity doesn’t move → that level is real
- Price rejects → clean short entry
You can’t see that on a normal candlestick chart.
Bookmap vs Traditional Charts
| Traditional Chart | Bookmap |
|---|---|
| Shows candles | Shows real liquidity |
| Shows indicators | Shows actual order flow |
| Shows what happened | Shows what’s happening right now |
Bookmap isn’t a replacement. It’s an extra layer of clarity.
Final Thoughts
Bookmap gives you a live view into liquidity and execution that normal charts hide. Once you understand the heatmap, bubbles, and order book columns, you can see which levels matter and which ones don’t. This is the foundation. Every other Bookmap feature builds on these three pillars.