Can somebody explain an order book to me?

[Mountaingoat]

Hello,

I have been wondering since I started trading coins what the things mean in an order book, so can somebody explain it to me?

[duke1839]

Bids are buy orders.  Asks are sell orders.  You can look at the depth of the order book on either side to try to guess where there is support or resistance.  Order books are nice because it allows you to "name your own price" and wait for the order to fill or you can get your order instantly filled by just matching the prices already offered.  Coinbase notably does not have an order book (not visible anyway) so they are unsuitable for most traders but I guess it's fine for a one off buy or sell order. 

[Najska]

The x-axis shows the price. The y-axis shows the depth of the orders. And the colours show the order types, i.e., either buy or sell. So, if you look at 0.00013 and see that there is a green volume corresponding to 1 in the y-axis, it means that there are buy orders at 0.00013, the total volume of which is 1 BTC.

Also, be warned that the order book in the OP is in log scale. http://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra2/logarithms-tutorial/logarithmic-scale-patterns/v/logarithmic-scale

[desticy]

Does the chart complete?

[cryptomad]

If the Buy order book is Higher than the selling,Thats a great thing but if Opposite then Coins might take awhile to sell