BITCOIN ORDER BOOK WALLS
Which big orders actually hold?
The large offers queued to buy and to sell, how long they typically stand, and what happens to the ones that go.
Where the big orders stood, and what became of them
35 readings of the book, from 19 Oct 2026 to 21 Oct 2026. The newest 34 are one hour each and the rest one day each. Price runs up the side and a brighter block means more money resting at that price then, against the busiest price in view. 23 walls are marked from 10:30 UTC on 14 Oct, 13 queued to buy and 10 to sell: the price reached 11, 2 were taken away, 6 cannot be called and 4 were still standing when last checked. 2 steps are named a wall in the latest reading.
Brighter means more money resting at that price, and the pale line is the price. Each box is a big order named as a wall, orange queued to buy and blue queued to sell, drawn from the quarter hour it was named to the one that found it gone. The mark at its end says what became of it.
- The price reached it
- Taken away
- Cannot tell
- Still standing
- Named a wall in the latest reading
Walls are marked from 10:30 UTC on 14 Oct 2026. Before that the map shows the book without them. Brightness is measured against the busiest price in view, so the map rescales when you change the range or zoom in. Read it for shape, not for a dollar figure.
How long a big order stays before it goes
The typical life of a wall, in minutes, for each day, taken over the spells that ended that day. A wall is timed from the quarter hour it was first named, and each spell is dated by the day it ended rather than the day it appeared. A day on which no spell ended has no reading.
Right now
A big resting order on Bitcoin's order book typically stands for 4 hours.
Which big orders are standing right now?
$52.83M is queued to buy between $82,540 and $82,953, 0.8% below the price. Its step held orders in 100% of that quarter hour's one-minute readings.
The price is $83,442, the middle of the 4 exchanges' own prices at the end of the quarter hour from 09:30 to 09:45 UTC on 21 Oct 2026.
How long do they stand?
Half of them stood for less than 4 hours and half for longer. 86% stood for at least an hour, 39% for at least six and 8% for half an hour or less. Standing for half an hour or less is the exception here, not the rule.
Counted across 1,282 spells since 2 Jul 2026. A wall still standing counts at the length it has stood so far, and each is timed from the quarter hour it was first named rather than from when the order was placed. A wall that moves to a nearby price is still counted as one wall. One that goes and later comes back is counted again, because nothing in the book says it is the same order. The longest we have recorded stood for 89 hours.
What ends them?
Of the 1,278 walls that have gone, the price reached 45% of them within the half hour in which they went. Another 37% went while the price stayed more than a step away, so those orders were withdrawn, or shrank back to an ordinary size, rather than being met. The remaining 18% we cannot call either way, and we would rather say so than pick the answer that reads better.
Before we call it either way, the prices on at least three of the five exchanges we check them against have to agree.
Is the queue more patient than it used to be?
The chart of how long a big order stays runs day by day since 2 Jul 2026. On 20 Oct 2026, the latest day on the record, 12 spells ended and the middle one had stood for 7.4 hours. A rising line means walls are being left in place longer. A falling one means they are going sooner, whether the price reaches them or they are withdrawn.
Each day counts the walls that ended on it, and a wall that moved to a nearby price is still counted as one. Each is timed to the end of the reading that found it gone, so these run about a quarter of an hour longer than the typical life above, which stops at the last reading that still found it there.
What does this mean for you?
Mostly it is a warning about a popular idea. A big order sitting under the price looks like a floor, and people trade as though it is one, but an order can be cancelled at any moment before the price arrives.
The record on this page is the honest version: some of them hold and plenty do not. Treat a wall as a plan somebody has, never as a promise the market has made.
Understanding
Bitcoin Order Book Walls
Where it stands today
On Bitcoin's order book, a big resting order typically stands for 4.0 hours as of .
What is a wall?
A price with an unusually large amount of money queued at it gets called a wall. The idea is that it might act as a floor under the price or a ceiling over it. The trouble with that idea is that anyone can cancel an offer at any moment, so a floor in a single picture of the book can be gone before the price ever gets there. Traders call a price area like this support when it sits below the price and resistance when it sits above. It is the same idea as a floor and a ceiling.
When does a big order count as a wall?
That is why this page is a record rather than a picture. For every quarter hour we check which walls are still standing. A step is named a wall only when its orders were in the book for at least half of the quarter hour, it held at least as much as the typical step on its side in three of the last four, and its size, scaled down by how much of the quarter hour its orders were there, is at least twice the typical step. Once named, it stays on the record while it keeps at least the typical size and passes the other two tests. So an order that flashes into one reading never earns the word, and where one exchange alone had more queued in the step at its busiest minute, we print that figure beside the wall's own.
What happens when a wall goes?
When a wall goes, we look at where the price went in that quarter hour and the one before, on the five exchanges we check prices against. If it traded inside the wall's step on at least three of them, we say the price reached it. If at least three reported and none came within a step of it, the orders were withdrawn, or shrank back to an ordinary size, rather than being met. Plenty of the time neither is clear, and the page says so, because an unknown that admits itself is worth more than a guess that does not.
Why the careful wording?
We say the price reached a wall, never that the wall was eaten. A book tells you what was offered and a candle tells you where the price went, and neither one tells you that a particular order was the one that traded. So the map marks each wall with what became of it and leaves it at that, and the chart of how long a big order stays follows the same question from one day to the next: whether large orders are being left in place for hours or going within the hour, whether the price reached them or they were taken away.
What is the one join to know about?
The prices we use to judge a vanished wall come from a slightly wider set of exchanges than the books themselves. For Bitcoin that is fair, because the exchanges' prices track each other closely, but it is a join between two records rather than one, and it is the reason we ask three of them to agree before calling anything.
The numbers
behind the chart
What does the current reading show?
How long a wall lasted, typically: the latest reading is 443 min, on . The highest reading since is 2,775 min on ; the lowest is 75 min on .
Walls that ended: the latest reading is 12, on . The highest reading since is 35 on ; the lowest is 1 on .
One reading for each day since 2 Jul 2026 on which a wall's spell ended: how many ended, and how long the middle one had stood. A step is named a wall only once it has held at least as much as the typical step on its side in three of the last four quarter hours, so an order that flashed into a single reading is not here.
What are the latest, highest and lowest readings?
| Measure | Latest | Highest | Lowest |
|---|---|---|---|
| How long a wall lasted, typically | 443 min | 2,775 min | 75 min |
| Walls that ended | 12 | 35 | 1 |
How do the readings compare with earlier dates?
| Reference date | How long a wall lasted, typically | Walls that ended |
|---|---|---|
| 1 month ago | 503 min | 8 |
| 3 months ago | 210 min | 15 |
What was the reading at each month’s end?
| Reading date | How long a wall lasted, typically | Walls that ended |
|---|---|---|
| 135 min | 17 | |
| 293 min | 16 | |
| 420 min | 12 |
What happened to the most recent large orders?
| Price | Side | Size | What happened | Stood for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $82,129 to $82,540 | buy | no longer there | gone, taken away | 6.8 hours |
| $82,953 to $83,368 | buy | $31.52M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $82,129 to $82,540 | buy | $19.97M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $82,129 to $82,540 | buy | no longer there | gone, cannot tell | 8.5 hours |
| $82,540 to $82,953 | buy | $45.82M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $82,540 to $82,953 | sell | no longer there | gone, the price reached it | 6.8 hours |
| $82,129 to $82,540 | buy | $35.55M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $82,540 to $82,953 | sell | $43.23M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $82,540 to $82,953 | buy | no longer there | gone, the price reached it | 60 minutes |
| $81,720 to $82,129 | buy | $6.02M ($9.72M) | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $82,540 to $82,953 | buy | $37.09M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $81,313 to $81,720 | buy | no longer there | gone, cannot tell | 12.8 hours |
| $83,368 to $83,785 | sell | $30.30M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $80,909 to $81,313 | buy | no longer there | gone, cannot tell | 8 hours |
| $81,720 to $82,129 | sell | no longer there | gone, the price reached it | 22.8 hours |
| $80,909 to $81,313 | buy | $14.18M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $81,720 to $82,129 | buy | no longer there | gone, the price reached it | 2 hours |
| $82,129 to $82,540 | sell | no longer there | gone, cannot tell | 2 hours |
| $81,720 to $82,129 | buy | $49.57M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $82,129 to $82,540 | sell | $18.68M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $82,540 to $82,953 | sell | no longer there | gone, cannot tell | 27.3 hours |
| $81,313 to $81,720 | sell | no longer there | gone, the price reached it | 1.5 hours |
| $81,313 to $81,720 | buy | $53.35M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $81,313 to $81,720 | sell | $10.94M ($11.05M) | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $81,313 to $81,720 | buy | no longer there | gone, the price reached it | 22.8 hours |
| $81,720 to $82,129 | buy | no longer there | gone, the price reached it | 24.5 hours |
| $82,129 to $82,540 | sell | no longer there | gone, cannot tell | 2.5 hours |
| $82,129 to $82,540 | sell | $17.86M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $81,720 to $82,129 | sell | $27.13M | appeared | 15 minutes |
| $81,720 to $82,129 | sell | no longer there | gone, the price reached it | 75 minutes |
A size is what the wall held in the quarter hour of that event, and a wall that has gone has no size left to show. Where a figure follows in brackets, one exchange alone had that much queued in the step at its busiest minute.
Source: Maketo’s own record of the large orders resting on the exchanges we watch, followed from the quarter hour each appeared to the quarter hour it went. Reading for .