How this tool works
Rotation Explorer: what a coin swap does to the order book
By Menno van Ravels - 13 years in crypto, 3 bear markets survived, zero paid promotions
Last reviewed:
7 min readFree to read
The Rotation Explorer shows what would happen to prices if a large amount of one coin were sold and the cash moved into another coin, using the orders visible on Binance right now. It walks through the order books step by step, deducts assumed fees, and reports how far each price moves. It is an illustration, not a forecast, a signal or an order; free members can try example coins or up to two of their own.
- Order book depth read
- 1,000 levels
- Amounts to test
- 5 presets
- Fees assumed
- 0.1% each way
- Free coins
- Up to 2
per side, from Binance spot USDT markets
50,000 USDT up to 1 million USDT of sale proceeds
a fixed assumption, not your account fee
of your own, or example coins; Premium unlocks all
1 · Sell the source coin
Into the buy orders (bids), best price first, until the chosen amount of USDT is reached
-0.1% sale fee
2 · Fee comes off
An assumed 0.1% sale fee is subtracted from the USDT proceeds
0.1% each way
3 · Buy the destination
From the sell orders (asks), best price first. An assumed 0.1% purchase fee is taken from the coins received
-0.1% purchase fee
Sell side · source coin (bids)
- First price: best bid, where selling starts
- Last price: lowest bid the sale had to reach
- Order-book levels used (out of 1,000 captured)
Buy side · destination coin (asks)
- First price: best ask, where buying starts
- Last price: highest ask the purchase had to reach
- Order-book levels used (out of 1,000 captured)
5 amount presets (USDT of sale proceeds)
- 50,000
- 100,000
- 250,000
- 500,000
- 1,000,000
The thinner market runs out of nearby orders sooner, so it uses more levels and moves further. Heights and level counts here are made up.
01What is the Rotation Explorer?
A rotation is when an investor sells one coin and puts the money into another. For a small amount that is easy. For a very large amount it is not, because the exchange only has so many buy and sell orders waiting at each price. The Rotation Explorer lets you see this effect in a made-up trade.
You pick a source coin to sell, an amount of sale proceeds, and a destination coin from your portfolio. The page then replays the trade against the real, currently visible orders on Binance and shows how far the price would move on each side. It does not place any trade and it does not connect to your exchange account.
02How do you read it?
You can also add a second destination to compare two swaps side by side. The result has two sides. On the sell side the model eats through the buy orders on the source coin, from the best price downwards. On the buy side it eats through the sell orders on the destination coin, from the best price upwards. Each side reports the numbers below.
A word on the terms. The order book is the list of waiting buy and sell orders. When a trade is big enough to use up the best orders and move on to worse ones, the average price you get is worse than the first price you saw. That gap is called slippage.
| Number on the page | What it means |
|---|---|
| Start and end price | The first visible price, and the last price the trade had to reach to be filled |
| Price move | How far the end price is from the start price, as a percentage, on that exchange only |
| Average price | The average price paid or received across all orders used |
| Levels used | How many order-book levels were consumed, out of the 1,000 captured per side |
| Fees and coins received | The assumed sale fee in USDT and the number of destination coins left after the assumed purchase fee |
| Implied market-cap change | What the final price would mean for the coin's total value, if it applied to every circulating coin (shown when the needed data is available) |
03Where does the data come from, and how is it calculated?
Order books come from Binance spot markets quoted in USDT, read when you press run. Coin identity, circulating supply and the USDT price come from CoinGecko. The list of source coins is the ten largest coins by market cap on CoinGecko that also trade against USDT on Binance, leaving out Bitcoin and stablecoins. BNB is the default source. The list is cached for about five minutes, and a pair of order books is reused for about 15 seconds so two quick runs see the same snapshot.
The calculation has fixed steps. First the model sells the source coin into the buy orders until the chosen amount of USDT is reached. Then it subtracts an assumed 0.1% sale fee. The remaining USDT buys the destination coin from the sell orders, and an assumed 0.1% purchase fee is taken from the coins received. The model never invents orders beyond the 1,000 levels it captured. If there is not enough depth, it stops at the last captured level and shows how much money was left unspent instead of guessing. The model also refuses to run when the order books are more than 30 seconds old or were captured more than 5 seconds apart.
04What is the Market chart view?
Next to the Rotation view there is a Market chart view. It embeds a TradingView daily chart of the ratio between small altcoins (TradingView's OTHERS group, outside the top ten coins) and the coins ranked 3 to 10 by market cap, where stablecoins count too. You can also switch the same chart to the price of your source or destination coin. It is background context for how altcoins have been moving relative to each other, loaded from TradingView.
It is a separate picture from the order-book result. It does not feed into the numbers above, and it is not a buy or sell indication. For the idea behind moving money between parts of the market, see the glossary entries on a rotation strategy and sector rotation.
05What are the limits?
Read the result with these in mind.
One exchange only
Only Binance USDT spot markets are used. Coins without such a market are hidden. Other exchanges, hidden orders and new orders arriving mid-trade can change the real outcome.
Assumed fees
The 0.1% fee on each side is a fixed assumption. It is not your account tier, and quantities are not rounded to the exchange's lot sizes.
A snapshot, not a forecast
The result describes the orders visible at one moment. Books change within seconds, and the page tells you when your snapshot is more than 30 seconds old. It does not predict where any price goes next.
Limited depth and run rate
Only 1,000 levels per side are read. A very large amount can use them all; the page then shows the part that could not be filled. Each member can start up to 10 runs per minute, and third-party data providers can be busy.
Not advice
Nothing here tells you to sell or buy any coin. It is an illustration of order-book pressure for a made-up trade.
06An example of use
A made-up example. An investor holds a mid-sized altcoin and wonders how hard it would be to move 500,000 USDT of it into another coin. They choose that amount and run the Explorer. The page shows that the sell side only has to use a few order-book levels and the price moves a little, while the buy side uses many more levels and the price moves much further.
That does not say they should or should not rotate. It shows that the destination coin is the thinner market, so a trade of that size would be costly there. The investor may decide to test a smaller preset amount, or to read about slippage before going further. The numbers in this example are invented.
07What is free and what is Premium?
Any member can open the page. Free members can run the Explorer on three example coins (SuperVerse, NEAR and Render), or, if they hold eligible coins, on up to two of their own. The first two coins you run become your two picks, and other coins show as locked. Free members use one portfolio and only coin names are used, never amounts.
Premium unlocks every coin you hold that has a Binance USDT market, and lets you choose among your portfolios. These limits can change, so check the pricing page for the current Premium plans.
08Frequently asked questions
Does the Rotation Explorer place a trade?
No. It only replays a made-up trade against the visible Binance order books. It does not connect to your exchange or wallet and it never creates an order.
Why does the price move more on one side?
Each coin has a different amount of buy and sell orders waiting. A thin market runs out of nearby orders sooner, so a large trade has to go further from the first price. The levels-used number shows this.
Are the fees my real fees?
No. The page assumes 0.1% on the sale and 0.1% on the purchase for every run. Your own exchange fee may be higher or lower.
Why does it say my coin is not available?
The Explorer only works for coins that have a Binance spot market quoted in USDT and that can be matched to a CoinGecko listing. Other holdings are hidden instead of being replaced by a guess.
Is the Rotation Explorer free?
Partly. Free members can run example coins or up to two of their own coins. Premium unlocks all the coins you hold. The pricing page shows the current Premium plans.
Is this financial advice or a signal?
No. It illustrates order-book pressure at one moment. It does not forecast prices and does not tell you what to buy or sell.