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Perhaps a bit off topic, but would a finance nerd recognize this style of graph better? I've never seen such a thing before, and it took a little while to unde

Perhaps a bit off topic, but would a finance nerd recognize this style of graph better? I've never seen such a thing before, and it took a little while to understand what the instructions were saying. But once I got it, I was immediately confused that there aren't more commonly known high information financial visuals beyond the standard two axis graph. Is it just that most exchanges somehow don't publicly publish such granular data?

jonaldomo 14y ago
I thought the same thing. And I don't think it's offtopic since hackernews is a place for development discussion.
- duncan 14y ago
  I also felt the same way.
coderrr 14y ago
I'm the original creator of this site. The initial version had no market rate chart (the one in the middle). It was purely a live version of the bids/asks (see bottom graph http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html). After making that it didn't take much creativity to realize a price chart would fit nicely in the middle.
a-priori 14y ago
It is a bit confusing, but here goes: Ignore the green curve for a second. The gold curve is the 'bid' curve. It shows, at any given USD value (horizontal axis), how many Bitcoins people are willing to buy (vertical axis). So it says that, based on the orders currently in the market's books, at the $6.00/Bitcoin price point, you could sell up to 23,282 Bitcoins to get $549,907. This trade could happen immediately, because the matching buy orders already exist. Similarly, the blue curve is the 'ask' curve. It shows how many Bitcoins people are currently willing to sell at any given price. So right now, at the $8.00/Bitcoin price point, you could buy 19,242 Bitcoins at a cost of $144,682. Obviously, you'd be stupid to do either of those trades because they're far from the market rate. The action happens where those curves meet, currently at $7.10362-7.18242. This means that, currently, someone could buy at least one Bitcoin at $7.18242, or sell one at $7.10362. If someone were to put either a buy or sell order in between those numbers, then it would sit there until a match came in. Which brings us to the green curve. This is the trade history. Like the other curves, the horizontal axis is the price, but here the vertical axis is time. It shows, trade by trade, what prices Bitcoins have actually traded at. Right now, the most recent is $7.10110; this is what people quote as the market price.

jonaldomo 14y ago

I thought the same thing. And I don't think it's offtopic since hackernews is a place for development discussion.

duncan 14y ago
I also felt the same way.

coderrr 14y ago

I'm the original creator of this site. The initial version had no market rate chart (the one in the middle). It was purely a live version of the bids/asks (see bottom graph http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html). After making that it didn't take much creativity to realize a price chart would fit nicely in the middle.

a-priori 14y ago

It is a bit confusing, but here goes: Ignore the green curve for a second. The gold curve is the 'bid' curve. It shows, at any given USD value (horizontal axis), how many Bitcoins people are willing to buy (vertical axis). So it says that, based on the orders currently in the market's books, at the $6.00/Bitcoin price point, you could sell up to 23,282 Bitcoins to get $549,907. This trade could happen immediately, because the matching buy orders already exist. Similarly, the blue curve is the 'ask' curve. It shows how many Bitcoins people are currently willing to sell at any given price. So right now, at the $8.00/Bitcoin price point, you could buy 19,242 Bitcoins at a cost of $144,682. Obviously, you'd be stupid to do either of those trades because they're far from the market rate. The action happens where those curves meet, currently at $7.10362-7.18242. This means that, currently, someone could buy at least one Bitcoin at $7.18242, or sell one at $7.10362. If someone were to put either a buy or sell order in between those numbers, then it would sit there until a match came in. Which brings us to the green curve. This is the trade history. Like the other curves, the horizontal axis is the price, but here the vertical axis is time. It shows, trade by trade, what prices Bitcoins have actually traded at. Right now, the most recent is $7.10110; this is what people quote as the market price.