Methodology
How CashCognizance works
Every number, label, and signal on this platform has a defined source and a defined calculation. This page explains what we collect, how we process it, and what each output means. No jargon.
1. Data collection
Where price data comes from
CashCognizance pulls price data from up to nine centralised exchanges simultaneously: Binance, Bybit, OKX, KuCoin, MEXC, Kraken, Coinbase, Bitstamp, and CoinGecko. For DEX-traded tokens, we additionally use DexScreener. Each exchange is treated as an independent data source. We call these venues.
Why it matters
Relying on a single exchange exposes you to that exchange's outages, price anomalies, and data gaps. Aggregating across many venues means a single failure does not affect the chart or the intelligence output.
Tier 1 and Tier 2 venues
Venues are split into two tiers. Tier 1 (Binance and Bybit) are fetched first in parallel because they have the highest volume and tightest spreads. If both Tier 1 venues succeed, Tier 2 is not used. If Tier 1 fails entirely (due to a network issue, a circuit breaker trip, or a geo-restriction), the system automatically falls back to Tier 2 (OKX, KuCoin, MEXC, Kraken, Coinbase, Bitstamp, CoinGecko) without any manual intervention.
Why it matters
This tiered fallback means the platform continues producing charts and intelligence signals even during exchange outages, which are more common than most users expect.
Candle intervals
Price data is collected as OHLCV candles (open, high, low, close, volume) at five intervals: 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, and 1 day. The 1-hour candle is the primary input for all intelligence calculations. Shorter intervals are used for chart display; longer intervals are used for trend context.
Derivatives data
For major assets (BTC, ETH, SOL, BNB, XRP), we additionally collect perpetual futures data from Binance and Bybit every five minutes. This includes the current funding rate and open interest. Both venues are fetched in parallel and averaged when both respond. If only one venue responds, that single value is used rather than discarding the data entirely.
Why it matters
Perpetual futures markets reflect what professional and leveraged traders are doing. This is information that is not visible in spot price data alone.
2. Price aggregation
How we combine venue prices
When multiple venues respond for the same candle, their prices are not simply averaged. Each venue is assigned a weight based on three factors: its share of total reported volume (higher volume = more weight), a pre-set quality score for that venue (reflecting its historical reliability), and a health factor derived from its current response latency and circuit breaker state. The weighted average of all venue closes becomes the aggregated close price.
Why it matters
Volume-weighted aggregation means a high-volume exchange like Binance naturally contributes more to the final price than a smaller venue. This is the appropriate reflection of where price discovery is actually happening.
Outlier removal
Before aggregating, we run an outlier check on all venue closes for a given candle. The median close across all venues is calculated. Any venue whose close deviates from that median by more than a threshold is removed before the weighted average is computed. For major assets (BTC, ETH, SOL, BNB, XRP) the threshold is 2.5%. For other assets it is 7%.
Why it matters
Exchange price feeds occasionally spike due to low liquidity, stale quotes, or technical glitches. Removing outliers before aggregating prevents a single bad data point from distorting the price shown to users.
What gets stored
The aggregated candle is stored alongside metadata recording which venues contributed, what weights were applied, and how many outliers were removed. This metadata is exposed in the chart API and visible in the source label on the chart. Raw per-venue candles are also stored separately, allowing the aggregation to be audited if needed.
3. Confidence scoring
Every intelligence output includes a confidence score between 0% and 100%. This score reflects how much the underlying data supports the signal, not how likely the signal is to be correct. It is built from three equally explainable components:
Price agreement
40% weightHow closely do venue prices agree with each other? Low cross-venue volatility means venues are reporting similar prices, which increases confidence. High divergence (venues reporting significantly different prices) reduces it.
Volume support
35% weightDoes trading volume back up the current market regime? Rising volume during a trending regime scores high. Falling volume during a trend suggests the move may lack conviction and scores lower. Volume support is also scaled by how much historical data is available. Fewer candles means less certainty.
Liquidity agreement
25% weightIs the market liquid enough to trust the price? This maps directly from the liquidity proxy (see below). A high liquidity state contributes a full 25% to confidence. A low liquidity state, common in newer or thinly-traded tokens, reduces it significantly.
Why it matters
A confidence score makes the intelligence output honest. A regime label with 90% confidence and a regime label with 30% confidence are meaningfully different things. The breakdown is always available as a tooltip on the asset page so you can see exactly which component is dragging the score down.
4. Intelligence signals
Intelligence signals are computed from aggregated candle data and updated with each cron run. They describe market conditions. They do not make predictions or recommendations.
Market Regime
The regime classifies the current phase of price behaviour based on two short-period moving averages (10-period and 20-period) and the direction of the 24-hour price change. There are five possible regimes:
Accumulation
Upward structure forming with moderate momentum
Expansion
Strong upward move confirmed by rising volume
Distribution
Downward pressure building with weakening structure
Contraction
Sustained decline confirmed by rising volume
Neutral
No clear directional bias in price or moving averages
Why it matters
Regime does not tell you what to do. It tells you what the market has been doing: a factual description of price structure that provides context for interpreting other signals.
Volatility State
Volatility state compares the average candle range (high minus low, expressed as a percentage of the close price) over the most recent 10 candles against the prior 20-candle window. If recent ranges are more than 20% wider than the historical average, the state is Expanding. If more than 20% narrower, it is Contracting. Otherwise it is Stable.
Why it matters
Expanding volatility means price swings are getting larger and the market is becoming more reactive. Contracting volatility often precedes a significant move in either direction. Neither state implies a direction.
Volume Pressure
Volume pressure compares the average trading volume of the most recent 10 candles against the prior 10 candles. The direction (Rising, Falling, or Neutral) is reported alongside a confirmation label. If volume is rising while price is also making a strong move, the volume Confirms that move. If volume is falling while price is moving strongly, it Contradicts the move, suggesting it may not have broad participation behind it.
Why it matters
A price move supported by rising volume is generally more meaningful than the same move on falling volume. Volume confirmation is a basic sanity check on price action.
Liquidity Proxy
The liquidity proxy combines three observable signals into a single Low, Medium, or High rating. The spread proxy measures how tight the candle high-low range is as a percentage of price. Tighter ranges suggest a more liquid market. The venue count measures how many independent exchanges are contributing data. More venues implies broader market participation. Volume consistency measures the coefficient of variation in volume across recent candles. Stable volume suggests a healthier market structure. All three scores are averaged into the final liquidity state.
Why it matters
Liquidity cannot be measured directly from price data alone, but these three proxies together give a reasonable indication of whether the market is operating under normal conditions or in a thin, unreliable state.
Risk State
Risk state summarises whether current conditions favour engagement or caution. It is derived from the combination of recent volatility and 24-hour price direction. High volatility alongside a falling price produces a Risk Off state. Low volatility alongside a rising price and healthy venue coverage produces Risk On. All other combinations produce Mixed. For the global view, BTC dominance trend is also factored in. Rising dominance during expansion suggests selective participation (Mixed), while falling dominance during expansion suggests broad risk appetite (Risk On).
Why it matters
Risk state is a condition descriptor, not a recommendation. It reflects observable market dynamics and does not account for your personal situation, time horizon, or risk tolerance.
5. Derivatives indicators
Funding Rate
The funding rate is a periodic payment exchanged between traders holding long and short positions in perpetual futures contracts. When the rate is positive, long position holders pay short holders, indicating the market has a net bullish lean. When negative, short holders pay long holders, indicating a bearish lean. CashCognizance averages the funding rate across Binance and Bybit futures and classifies the result as Positive, Negative, or Neutral (within plus or minus 0.01%).
Why it matters
Funding rate reflects the cost of maintaining a leveraged directional position. Persistently extreme positive or negative rates indicate crowded positioning, which has historically preceded mean-reversion moves.
Open Interest
Open interest is the total number of active, unsettled perpetual futures contracts. CashCognizance tracks the USD notional value and computes a short-term direction by comparing the current reading to the previous snapshot. A change of more than 1% in either direction is classified as Increasing or Decreasing. Smaller changes are classified as Flat.
Why it matters
Rising open interest means new money is entering the derivatives market as traders open new positions. Falling open interest means existing positions are being closed. Open interest direction, read alongside price direction, gives a clearer picture of whether a move is driven by new conviction or simply position unwinding.
6. DEX token reliability rules
Tokens traded only on decentralised exchanges (DEXs) are subject to additional eligibility checks before chart data is shown. These rules exist because DEX pools vary widely in quality. A pool with very little liquidity or no recent trading activity can produce price data that does not reflect a real market.
Minimum liquidity
$5,000 USD
The pool must hold at least $5,000 in liquidity. Below this level, even small trades can move the price significantly, making the data unreliable.
Minimum 24h volume
$1,000 USD
The pool must have traded at least $1,000 in the past 24 hours. Zero or near-zero volume indicates an inactive pool where prices are essentially stale.
Recent trade activity
Tx count > 0
There must be at least one recorded transaction in the past 24 hours. Pools with no recent activity are considered inactive regardless of stated liquidity.
Tokens that do not meet these thresholds at import time are stored as inactive and no chart is shown. Tokens that met the thresholds at import but have since dropped below them will show a visible warning on their asset page. The chart API also returns a specific error code in this case rather than silently returning an empty chart.
7. Data freshness and staleness
Candle data is ingested every few minutes via scheduled cron jobs. Intelligence signals are recomputed after each ingest cycle. Derivatives snapshots are updated every five minutes.
Every asset page shows a freshness indicator describing when the last candle was received and how many venues contributed. If candle data has not updated in more than two hours, indicating a persistent ingest failure, a visible warning is shown above the chart. If derivatives data is older than 15 minutes, a similar notice appears on the derivatives panel. These warnings exist so that users always know when they may be looking at stale information.
Why it matters
Data freshness is a trust signal. A platform that silently shows stale data is harder to trust than one that tells you when something is wrong. Our approach is to always surface data quality information rather than hide it.
CashCognizance provides market data, aggregated signals, and educational context. Nothing on this platform constitutes financial advice, investment recommendations, or trading signals. All intelligence outputs are descriptive. They describe what the data shows, not what you should do with it. Always conduct your own research before making financial decisions.