Crypto glossary
Trading pair
A trading pair is two assets that can be exchanged directly for each other on a market, such as BTC/USDT, with the price quoted in the second asset.
Every market on an exchange is built around a pair. The first asset is the base currency, the one being bought or sold, and the second is the quote currency, in which the price is expressed. On a BTC/USDT market, a price of 60,000 means that one bitcoin costs 60,000 USDT.
Crypto exchanges list pairs against stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, against fiat currencies like the dollar or the euro, and against major coins like BTC and ETH. On decentralized exchanges each pair usually has its own liquidity pool. When no direct pair exists, a trade is routed through an intermediate asset, for example selling a small token for ETH and then ETH for USDC.
Liquidity varies greatly between pairs, even for the same token. A coin can have deep markets against USDT and thin ones against EUR, which means wider spreads and more slippage on the smaller market. Checking volume and order book depth for the specific pair before a large trade helps avoid poor execution.
Example
On an ETH/BTC pair quoted at 0.04, selling 1 ETH returns 0.04 BTC, while the same ether sold on an ETH/USDC pair quoted at 2,500 would return 2,500 USDC.
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