How volume goes with the candles
A lot of beginners watch only the red and green of the candles and completely ignore that row of greyish little bars below the chart. That row is volume, and it's the single most underrated thing in chart reading. The very same green candle can mean wildly different things depending on the volume under it. Look at the comparison below and it clicks straight away.
Up on heavy volume
Up on light volume
- What volume actually measures (in one line: how much traded over this stretch)
- The common volume-and-price combinations, and how to roughly judge whether a move is "for real"
- What rising volume and falling volume each hint at
- Why volume can mislead too, so you can't draw conclusions from it alone
- The thing a beginner should watch first: the "unusually big" bars
On this page
What volume is
Volume isn't mysterious. It's simply how much of this coin traded over a given stretch of time — how many buys and sells actually got matched together. On the chart it's usually the row of bars below the candles, with each bar lining up with the candle above it for that same stretch. The taller the bar, the more trading there was, the busier it was; the shorter the bar, the quieter it was.
Why does it matter? Because for a price to move, someone has to actually buy and sell for it to count. Price tells you "how much it moved"; volume tells you "how many people took part in this move." A rise that lots of people piled into, and a rise that hardly anyone bothered with, carry completely different weight. That's why in reading candlestick charts for beginners we say watching the candles alone isn't enough — volume is their partner.
The common volume-and-price combinations
Pair the up-or-down of price with the size of volume two by two, and you get what people call "volume-price relationships." You don't need to memorise them all — just the most common, most useful few:
| Price | Volume | Rough meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Up | Larger | Real money backing it — the rise is fairly solid |
| Up | Thinner | Few takers, a hollow rise — watch for it running out of steam |
| Down | Larger | Panic or heavy selling — the drop has force behind it |
| Down | Thinner | Selling pressure easing — the drop may be running out (not certain) |
See the pattern? The core is one line: volume "vouches" for price. When a rise comes with volume, it's more believable; when a rise has no volume, keep your guard up. That's also why, in the support and resistance note, when we judge whether a breakout is real, we specifically check whether it's a "breakout on volume" — a breakout on heavy volume is far more reliable than one on light volume.
What rising and falling volume hint at
"Rising volume" and "falling volume" are words you'll hear every single day from here on, so let's pull each out and make it clear.
Rising volume means volume is clearly larger than usual. It signals the market has suddenly gotten busy, with a big crowd buying or selling at once. Rising volume is neutral in itself — what matters is whether it pairs with a rise or a fall, and where it shows up: rising volume on a rise down in a basement area is often read as money coming in; rising volume up high while price can't push further may instead be someone quietly distributing.
Falling volume means volume is clearly smaller than usual. It signals a quiet market with few participants, everyone holding off. Falling volume is neutral too: thinning out mid-rise means not many are chasing and the climb is short on conviction; thinning out at the tail end of a drop sometimes means the would-be sellers have mostly sold.
One small reminder here, something we got wrong early on too: "rising" and "falling" volume are both relative — you have to compare against this coin's own recent average, not against a different coin. A small coin's "big volume" might be nothing on Bitcoin. Your yardstick is always its own past row of bars.
Price is the performance, volume is the audience. However lively it looks on stage, if no one in the seats is clapping, the show probably won't last.
Volume can mislead too
After all that on volume and price, let me pour some cold water: volume isn't gospel — it'll mislead you too.
First, volume-price relationships are a "lean," not a "law." A rise on heavy volume is more believable, but plenty of rises on heavy volume top out right after; a drop on falling volume may run out, or it may just be the drop catching its breath mid-way. It gives you a probability, not an answer — exactly like support and resistance.
Second, some volume in crypto is watered down. On certain exchanges or with certain small coins, there's wash trading and self-dealing — tricks for faking activity that make the volume bars look tall when there isn't that much real buying and selling. So even reading the same volume, watching major coins and large platforms with genuine flow is more reliable than watching obscure small coins.
Third, volume on its own is never enough. Volume has to be read together with price and with location. "Heavy volume up high" and "heavy volume down low" can mean opposite things. Talking about volume out of context is like the blind men and the elephant. So don't expect that learning to read volume lets you make a call — it's just one tool in your kit.
For beginners: watch the unusually big bars first
Finally, a starting method you can use right away, and the least effortful one: don't watch every volume bar — watch the unusually big ones first.
Most of the time, volume is flat and ordinary, the bars all roughly the same height; those you can skim past. What's actually worth stopping for are the bars that suddenly appear, towering well above the ones around them. This kind of "abnormal spike" usually corresponds to something — news that's broken, large money moving in or out, a key breakout or breakdown. It's the moment the market is speaking loudly.
When you see an abnormally big bar, what you should do isn't buy or sell on the spot — it's ask yourself a few questions:
- The candle paired with this big bar — is it up or down? Is the body long?
- Where did it show up? At a bottom, up high, or near a support/resistance line?
- How did the next few candles go? After the volume spike, did the move continue or reverse?
This habit of "catch the abnormal first, then read the context" is far less of a headache than trying to interpret every single bar, and you're less likely to overthink yourself into a corner. Once you're comfortable reading the abnormal spikes, you can slowly work on the everyday volume-and-price detail later.
Remember, what volume analysis helps you with is judging whether a move is "reliable," not predicting the next step. Like the candle and the moving average, it's a tool to help you make fewer mistakes, not a crystal ball. As a next step we'd suggest reading how to read moving averages to add another common tool.
Rising and falling volume are probability leans, not certain signals, and the volume itself may be watered down. Any simple conclusion like "chase whenever you see rising volume, dump whenever you see falling volume" is unreliable. Crypto swings hard, and contracts and leverage can wipe out your capital entirely. Everything here is chart-reading education, not investment advice, and not a forecast.
Find one big volume bar and look at it yourself
Volume and price don't stick from reading — you have to sweep over a real chart a few times. OKX has a free demo account, so you can watch without placing any order, pick out the tallest volume bars, and see what the candles above them are saying.
Open a practice account on OKX →Contains a referral link (invite code OK3188). We have no affiliation with OKX; whether you sign up, and your fees, are unaffected. Crypto carries risk — judge for yourself.