Follow the Money

Brad Folkens
Cignals
Published in
3 min readApr 28, 2019
Analyzing dynamic market flows with Cignals.io PumpMap

The crypto market is exceedingly dynamic, changing from one second to the next in dramatic fashion. However, for all the action shown in price with traditional market charts, there is often a lack of detail behind the candle. Without additional insight, it’s hard to form a clear story of action going on behind the scenes. What if you could see the relationship between assets in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, a sort of macro-crypto-market dynamic that could be analyzed? We think it’s best to follow the money to gain greater insight into why a pump, or dump, is occurring.

Cignals continuously monitors a large number of cryptocurrency exchanges (over 16 at the time of this writing), with the most active pairs captured from each. We have focused our attention on exchanges that provide a real-time feed, and have ignored those that don’t offer this type of streaming data. In this way, the data we present via the PumpMap chart is always an accurate snapshot of “now.” To indicate flow, we use a continuous, exponentially decayed measure of trading volume, normalized across a multi-week period. This measure reveals the market flow between symbols across the entire cryptocurrency market.

In the diagram above, we assign a color to each currency symbol included. The width of each arc is proportional to the total flow traded on that symbol across the system. For example, if there is a substantial amount of BTC trading into USD, compared to LTC and ETH, then BTC will have a much larger span of USD’s arc versus LTC and ETH. Also, the total amount of BTC flowing in the entire system will be measured proportionally to other currency symbols out of the full outer circumference of the chart.

Each color represents the flow of a particular symbol, and the color of the band displays directional bias. In the chart below, BTC is receiving a buy volume bias from BNB, ADA, JPY, and IOTA, but selling off into ZEC, LTC, and DASH. You can perform a study on a particular symbol by hovering over that symbol’s arc.

Directional bias showing the inflow and outflow from BTC

We have a lot more planned for this feature in the coming months, but we are very excited to present this tool to the trading and cryptocurrency community as a way to monitor flow in the space. As the market gains complexity, we believe it is critical to have the proper tools to measure and react to events in this incredible, dynamic system.

So, here it is: monitor cryptocurrency trading flow in real time with the Cignals.io PumpMap.

We are eager to receive your feedback and would love to hear more about what you would like to see in this tool — features, criticism, etc. Please send us a note on twitter @cignalsio or through the comment section on this article.

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Brad Folkens
Cignals

Co-Founder of @CloudSightAPI, @CamFind, @TapTapSee. Photographer. Musician. Plant-based athlete.