What is CVD (Cumulative Volume Delta)?
CVD stands for Cumulative Volume Delta, also called cumulative delta. It tells you which side put more money to work over a stretch of price action: aggressive buyers or aggressive sellers.
Every trade has an aggressive side, the taker. A market buy that lifts the offer is a taker buy; a market sell that hits the bid is a taker sell. Taker buy volume minus taker sell volume within a bar is that bar's Delta (volume delta). Add up each bar's Delta one after another and you get CVD. A rising line means taker buyers spent more than taker sellers over that period; a falling line means the opposite.
Price shows the result, CVD shows who did the pushing. Price up with CVD up means real money is chasing. Price up while CVD flattens or drops is what traders call a CVD divergence: the rally lacks aggressive buying and may just be shorts covering or asks being pulled, and moves like that tend to be fragile.
Say BTC rallies from 64,000 to 64,600 in an hour, futures CVD climbs $80M and spot CVD drops $12M. The money came from futures while spot sold into it: a perp-driven, leveraged move that can unwind just as fast. The "Spot vs futures" card on this page shows which case you're in right now.

