BNB foodchain

Resting bids hold the water left of the price and resting asks the water right of it, one fish per price level, as big as the dollars waiting there. The water is the book stood on end: every level and every Hyperliquid whale stands in order of size over the whole depth, the smallest near the surface and the biggest on the bottom, so where a fish stands says how big it is — and none ever lies across another; where the water is crowded, its fish swim a little smaller. A level keeps its step behind the front until it is eaten; it rises as it is bitten and sinks as the book refills it, and a level pulled before it is eaten backs away into the deep.

The water holds the spot books of Kraken, Binance, OKX, Bybit and Bitfinex, as wide as the day's range. In the settings, Market turns it to the perpetual futures of Bybit and Hyperliquid: another market at its own price, in a water a quarter of a per cent either side of it, because an exchange publishes its perpetual book two hundred levels at a time where it publishes spot by the thousand. Liquidations, whales and the weather are the futures' own and do not change with the tab.

Every market order on Kraken, Binance, OKX, Bybit or Bitfinex swims in as it trades — a buyer in green from the left, a seller in coral from the right — as big as what it traded and at the depth its dollars put it, and an order under $250 is plankton at the top. It bites the other side's nearest rank, and an order that walked deeper into the book bites on to the next. In the settings you choose how big an order must be to swim; what is smaller is still counted at the foot.

A futures position closed by force on Bybit, Binance or OKX rises from the seabed as big as the position: a liquidated long in coral, sold into the bids, a liquidated short in green, bought from the asks. It strikes the front rank and sinks back. These are USDT perpetuals, not the spot books the ranks stand on, so a strike takes nothing from a rank and counts as no kill, and the row at the foot counts them apart, as seen: Bybit sends every liquidation, Binance at most one a second, OKX a selection.

The biggest public positions in the coin on Hyperliquid, the one venue where every account's positions can be read, stand in the water among the levels by their size, farther off than the fight: a long in green facing right on the bulls' side, a short in coral facing left on the bears' side, each moored by a line dropped to an anchor on the seabed under it, at the price it opened at, so a position is never taken for an order. Each stands at the price it entered, as near it as its own side's water allows, several at one price one under another, marked with its account's address shortened, never a name. As the price nears the one that would liquidate it the whale grows restless, and if the water's price crosses that, the mooring parts and the whale is eaten, counted as no kill. What that price is stands on its card, not across the water. Positions are read every five minutes: each side's two largest, and up to two more within 3% of their liquidation. A position is a fact of the moment it was read, not advice.

A new story about the coin from the news wire — Tree of Alpha and fourteen publishers — is thrown into the water in a bottle that floats at the surface. Open it to read the headline, where it came from and how long ago, and follow it to the story. Three bottles float at most, pushing each other apart so none lies on another, and each sinks after a minute unless its card is open.

Under the depth chart, the fourth answer beside the levels, the whales and the liquidations, the journal names the water's biggest moments as they happen — an order, a wall eaten or pulled from the book, a liquidation, a Hyperliquid whale coming into view or reaching its liquidation, a story in a bottle — from sizes that are big for the coin. Moments of one kind and one side within ten seconds are one line that grows, so a cascade reads as one. On a wide screen the newest line also shows over the water for a few seconds.

An order from a fish's size up carries its venue's letter by its tail: K for Kraken, B for Binance, O for OKX, Y for Bybit, F for Bitfinex. In the settings, Highlight lights the whales or one side, and Exchange lights one venue's orders and its share of every wall; the rest of the water dims rather than going.

Turned on in the settings, the water is heard as it is seen: the bulls' blows from the left, the bears' from the right, and a liquidation's swell from its side. Choose from what size it sounds, and a busy tape keeps to its big moments.

The futures around the fight are the water's weather, read every minute from Binance, Bybit, OKX and Hyperliquid. Funding is a current: it runs toward the side that pays, so when longs pay shorts the plankton, the marine snow and the kelp drift toward the bulls. Open interest is how crowded the water is: the higher it stands in its week, the thicker the snow. The share of accounts long says which way the crowd leans. In bitcoin's aquarium each new block sends a wave across the water carrying its number, and leaves a layer in the sand. None of it moves a fish. The card under the tank gives the figures, green where they lean the bulls' way and red where they lean the bears'.

The water is the last day, its low at the left edge and its high at the right. The price is the line between the two sides: the bulls hold the water left of it, the bears the water right of it, and the share each holds is its territory, in per cent. When the bulls eat through an ask the line moves up; when the bears eat through a bid it moves down.

No fish passes through another. A rank bitten to nothing dies, and its bones sink to the seabed, pile up, and slowly fade. A small order only takes a bite out of a big level, so a school of them wears a wall down bite by bite, while a whale of an order sweeps several levels at once. Two orders that meet in the open water settle it the old way: the much bigger one eats the other.

There are no rounds. The book lives day and night, so the counts at the foot — what each side traded and ate — are of the last five minutes, and the water is redrawn as the day's range moves.