Perps overview

The perps tape is the rawest read of crypto sentiment we have. This section explains how to read each panel, why we serve a cross-exchange aggregate instead of per-venue series, and where the Study panel collapses several views into one chart.

Why a cross-exchange aggregate

Every perp panel on BackQuant pulls from PERP_AGG and SPOT_AGG, single composite series sourced from Kiyotaka, which aggregates the major perp and spot venues into one tape per side. The legacy "pick a venue" dropdowns are gone for the major coins (BTC, ETH, SOL, HYPE).

The reasoning is simple: you almost never want to read a single venue's OI in isolation. A short squeeze that builds on one venue and unwinds on another leaves no fingerprint on a single-venue chart. The aggregate makes cross-venue flow visible by default, and removes the step of picking a representative venue every time you load a panel.

What the panels are