Crypto RSI Heatmap

What the map shows

The Relative Strength Index is a momentum gauge. Over the last fourteen candles it compares the size of the up moves with the size of the down moves and scores the result from 0 to 100. A coin that has done nothing but rise reads near 100; one that has done nothing but fall reads near 0. Seventy and thirty are the conventional lines: above seventy a move is called overbought, below thirty oversold.

One coin's RSI is a small fact. Two hundred and fifty at once is a market reading. This page places the largest coins with a perpetual market by their RSI, bottom to top, and by their size, left to right, so the state of the board is visible: whether it is bunched in the middle, stretched to the top, or split between the majors and the small caps. The average and the count in each zone are printed above the map, and the same reading is available on six timeframes, because a market can be oversold on the hour and overbought on the week at the same time. The row of tiles above the map puts all six averages side by side, and clicking one switches the page to it.

How to read it

• The average is the market's momentum: A board averaging 65 on the daily is a market that has been rising broadly; one averaging 35 has been falling broadly. Averages above 70 or below 30 are rare and usually do not last.
• The spread is dispersion: A tight cluster means everything is moving together, which is what a Bitcoin-led market looks like. A wide spread means coins are trading on their own stories.
• The extremes are the candidates for a reversal, not a promise of one: A coin at 90 has run a long way fast. It can keep running. What the reading says is that the risk of a snap-back is elevated, not that it is imminent.
• Timeframes disagree, and the disagreement is the information: Short timeframes reset in hours; the weekly takes months. A coin overbought on every timeframe from fifteen minutes to a week is in a different state from one overbought only on the hour.
• Breadth extremes matter more than single names: When a third of the board is overbought at once, the whole market is stretched, and that is when broad pullbacks tend to start.

What it cannot tell you

• Direction: RSI describes the last fourteen candles. A high reading is a description of what happened, and a strong trend can hold a high reading for weeks.
• Size: Every coin counts once, whether it is Bitcoin or the two-hundred-and-fiftieth name. That is what makes it a breadth measure, and also its limit.
• Venue: each RSI is computed on a blended perpetual price. A coin thinly traded on most venues can read differently from its deepest market.
• Timing: The board moves every fifteen minutes on the shortest timeframe. A screenshot of it is a snapshot, and the time it is good for is printed under the headline.