Trading Volume — Frequently Asked Questions

Is volume measured in the token or in dollars?

Both, and they answer different questions.

Base volume is the quantity of the base asset traded — MLRT in MLRT/USDT. Quote volume is the value traded in the quote asset — USDT.

Use base volume to compare one pair against itself over time. Use quote volume to compare across pairs, because it shares a denomination. Comparing raw base volume between tokens at different prices is meaningless.

CoinDock records both (volume_base, volume_quote) on every candle.

Is there such a thing as buy volume versus sell volume?

Not in the way the phrase implies. Every trade has a buyer and a seller in equal quantity, so the two are identical by construction.

What people usually mean is how much volume executed against the ask versus against the bid — an aggressor-side measurement requiring trade-side data. That is a real metric, but it is not "buy volume exceeded sell volume", and the difference matters when someone uses the phrase to argue direction.

Does high volume confirm a price move?

This is widely repeated and weakly evidenced.

The claim is that a move on heavy volume is more significant than the same move on light volume. Studies do not robustly support it across markets and periods, and in crypto specifically it is undermined by how cheaply volume can be manufactured.

Volume is worth having on the chart as an observation about activity. Treating it as confirmation is a bigger claim than the evidence carries.

How is crypto volume faked?

Wash trading: a party trades with itself using two accounts placing opposite orders. Volume is generated, no risk is transferred, and no capacity to trade is created for anyone else.

It is cheap — on a venue with low or rebated fees, large volume figures cost very little — and effective, because volume drives aggregator rankings, marketing claims, and buyer interest.

What is much harder to fake is resting depth, because that is capital genuinely exposed to being hit by anyone at any moment.

How do I sanity-check a volume figure?

Four cross-checks:

The second is the most revealing and the least available elsewhere. CoinDock exposes trades_count per candle through the candles API precisely so it can be checked.

Is volume the same as liquidity?

No, and conflating them is the most expensive volume mistake.

Volume is backward-looking: what already traded. Liquidity is forward-looking: what could trade now, and at what price impact.

A token can post high daily volume and be illiquid if that volume arrived in bursts against an empty book. Liquidity, not volume, tells you whether you can exit. See what is liquidity.

What does zero volume in an interval mean?

That no trades occurred. How it is displayed varies: some venues omit the candle entirely, others carry the previous close forward as a flat candle with zero volume.

This matters on thin pairs, because a run of carried-forward candles looks like price stability when it actually represents an absence of trading. Nothing held the price — nothing tested it.

Should I trust the 24h volume on data aggregators?

Treat it as a starting point, not a fact.

Aggregators source figures from exchanges, and their ability to detect wash trading varies. A large headline number with thin depth and few trades should lower your confidence, not raise it.

The number is also usually quote volume aggregated across many venues — and you cannot trade against an aggregate. You trade on one venue, against one book.

Does volume matter for a new listing?

Very little. Early volume reflects who happened to be watching, a small number of participants, and often the project's own liquidity provision.

Depth is the number that matters at launch — specifically bid-side depth, because that determines whether early buyers can exit. See liquidity for new coins.

Related

• Crypto Volume Explained
• How to Use Volume on Charts
• What Is Liquidity