How to Use MattDOM

MattDOM combines live order-book liquidity, recent trades, a tick chart, and volume delta in one screen. This guide explains what each area shows and gives you a practical workflow for reading it.

1. Choose a market

Enter a symbol such as BTC-USD in the symbol box and press GO. The connection indicator should read LIVE before you rely on the display.

The status bar also shows:

LAST — latest traded price
SPREAD — difference between the best bid and best ask
IMBALANCE — visible bid volume versus visible ask volume
FEED AGE — age of the latest market-data update
DRAW — time MattDOM took to render the screen

Treat a high or red feed age as stale data. Do not make a timing decision from a stale ladder.

2. Understand the main ladder

The center price ladder is arranged around the current market:

Bid rows below the spread represent resting buy liquidity.
Ask rows above the spread represent resting sell liquidity.
The gap between the best bid and best ask is the spread.

MattDOM aggregates liquidity from multiple supported venues. The colored markers beside a depth bar identify contributing venues, while the number shows total base-coin size at that displayed level.

Large size is intent, not a promise. An order can be canceled before it trades. A level becomes more useful when it persists, reloads after being hit, or produces a visible price reaction.

3. Read the columns

Tick chart

The left-side TICK chart plots recent trades vertically by price. Each dot is colored by trade direction. Use TICKS/DOT to combine multiple trades into each dot when activity is too dense.

Look for:

Repeated trades at one price without progress: possible absorption
Fast prints through several prices: possible sweep or liquidity vacuum
Increasing activity as price reaches a large level: a test of that liquidity

Market depth

Depth bars show resting liquidity at each displayed price. A longer bar means more displayed size relative to the other visible rows. Small venue markers show where that liquidity comes from.

Bid, price, and ask

The center cluster shows bid size, price, and ask size. The outlined inside rows are the current best bid and best ask.

Recent prints

The RECENT column shows aggressive volume traded at each price. Green indicates buying activity and red indicates selling activity.

Volume delta profile

The right-side profile compares buying and selling volume by price over the selected PROFILE window. Change the window from one minute to four hours depending on the context you need.

Liquidity signals

Open SIGNALS to enable historical context and event markers:

Heat colors resting liquidity by age or defensive behavior.
Absorption diamonds identify levels that remain defended while aggressive volume trades into them.
Iceberg squares identify repeated replenishment during an active attack.
Spoof triangles identify unusually large, short-lived quotes pulled mostly intact with little observed execution.

Iceberg and Spoof detection are off by default. These markers describe observed market-data patterns, not hidden quantity, trader identity, intent, or a guaranteed trade setup. See Tutorial 3: Liquidity Signals for the confirmation rules and practical workflows.

4. Adjust the view

Grouping

AUTO selects a practical price increment. The numbered grouping buttons multiply that increment. Higher grouping compresses more prices into each row and is useful for broader structure; lower grouping is better for execution timing.

Row density

Use ROWS to choose a preset from 25 to 1,000 or type an exact row count. The ladder scales the selected number of levels to the available screen height.

Live and pause

LIVE or the L key recenters the display.
PAUSE or the space bar freezes rendering while data continues buffering.
Resuming jumps back to the newest state.

Execution is disabled while the display is paused.

Sound and fullscreen

SOUND enables directional trade cues. The fullscreen button or F key maximizes the workspace.

5. A practical reading workflow

Confirm the feed is live and the spread is normal.
Find the nearest persistent liquidity above and below price.
Watch whether those levels stack, pull, or reload as price approaches.
Compare resting depth with actual recent prints. Displayed size without trades is only intent.
Look for price response: continuation, rejection, or absorption.
Use the volume profile for context and the tick chart for timing.

Common patterns

Pattern	What to watch
Absorption	Heavy aggressive prints but little price progress; resting size reloads
Iceberg behavior	A level repeatedly replenishes while aggressive trades hit it
Possible spoof-like pull	A large, short-lived wall disappears mostly intact with little execution
Sweep	Several adjacent levels trade or disappear rapidly
Pulling	A large displayed level vanishes before price reaches it
Stacking	New resting liquidity builds behind one side of the market
Compression	Strong liquidity remains close on both sides and price becomes pinned

No single number is a trade signal. Read displayed liquidity, executed trades, persistence, and price response together.

6. Position display

When Bitunix execution is connected and the selected symbol has a position, MattDOM draws its average entry as a line through the tick chart. The ladder highlights the area between entry and the current price:

Blue/cyan indicates a long position.
Purple indicates a short position.

The entry label includes position side, coin quantity, and current unrealized PnL. Account information refreshes automatically, but the exchange remains the final source of truth.

7. Placing orders from the ladder

After connecting Bitunix or Coinbase and choosing an execution venue, enter a base-coin amount in SIZE (COIN). Orders are sent live without a confirmation dialog.

Left-click any valid ask row to send a market buy.
Left-click any valid bid row to send a market sell.
Right-click a valid ask row to place a limit sell.
Right-click a valid bid row to place a limit buy.
Hold the right mouse button and drag across price rows to build a limit-order ladder. Each highlighted valid row becomes a separate limit order, and SIZE (COIN) applies to every level, not to the ladder as a whole.

The drag preview highlights sell layers in red and buy layers in green. Release the right button to queue the ladder in drag order. Rows inside the spread are skipped, and a single gesture is capped at 50 valid price levels. Queued orders are submitted as quickly as each selected exchange accepts them.

Open orders appear as dashed lines. Select the boxed × on a line to cancel that order. Always verify the symbol, venue, size per layer, and total ladder exposure before releasing the mouse button.

For placing orders, continue to Tutorial 2: Execution in MattDOM.