Delta Balene vs Retail

This page is planned to contrast the net direction of large versus small trades — stratifying net buying and selling by trade size to see whether large and small participants are positioned on the same side.

The classic use of stratified flow is spotting disagreement: large net buying alongside small net selling has historically appeared near bottoms (institutions accumulating while retail capitulates), with the inverse more common near tops. Two methodological problems deserve caution: trade size is not trader size, since large participants split orders to reduce impact and algorithmic execution has sharply worsened this distortion in recent years; and the choice of size threshold directly changes the conclusion, so differing definitions across data sources make cross-source comparison meaningless. Usable as corroborating evidence, insufficient as a standalone signal.

Volume and market-structure metrics describe the size and distribution of trading activity. Methodologies differ sharply between venues (wash-trading filters, USD conversion), so confirm the accounting basis before comparing platforms side by side.

The live chart for this metric is still being wired up. Global volume, venue share and perp-vs-spot pages already carry real data.