Crypto Trading Spread: A Detailed Overview

Because of the element of risk, trading cryptocurrency is sometimes likened to betting, but there is a deeper basic resemblance in how both markets operate. In betting, an implied cost of making a bet is known as a margin, known as the spread in trading. Understanding what a spread signifies is critical for being a better cryptocurrency trader.

Many cryptocurrency traders are hunting for the next big thing before it blows up. The issue is that there will be relatively little trading activity when a cryptocurrency initially begins. In trading terminology, this is an inefficient market since there will be a large difference between the price at which individuals want to purchase and the price at which they wish to sell. The spread is the name given to this difference.

Look at cryptocurrency trading apps like Binance.

Market Efficiency is a Notion

Assume you establish a new Super Coin cryptocurrency and manufacture one million coins. You may value the coin at €1 and want to sell 10% of it at that price, but no one knows about your new currency. Slowly, a few individuals express an interest, but with varying degrees of certainty, therefore there may be purchase orders in the form of:

You are now the sole seller. Therefore unless A is prepared to improve their offer, your only alternative is to accept offer A and sell at 0.75 euros.

After purchasing at €0.75, (A) may only benefit by selling 100,000 Super Coins to someone else at a higher price, say €0.76 (also known as a Bid). Unless B/C change their minds, the best offer to purchase is now €0.70, and any new market entrant needs to offer €0.71 to be the best offer (known as an Ask), which is still far lower than what the only Seller (A) is ready to take. As a result, the market looks like this:

Because there are so few market players, the only option for anybody to earn a profit is to buy/sell at the given price and wait for additional individuals to make more Asks/Bids. This is referred to as increasing liquidity to the market, and it reduces the gap between the highest price someone is prepared to purchase and the lowest price someone is willing to sell at – the name Spread alludes to this.

The Spread’s Importance

The spread is the difference between the highest price someone wants to purchase and the lowest price someone wishes to sell at, and it must be reflected in the explicit fee paid for completing the deal.

That discrepancy will be minimal in an efficient market, such as big cryptocurrencies, where many individuals desire to purchase and sell in equal quantities.

It is an implied cost since you only see it in future transactions because the coin you purchased must rise beyond the spread level rather than the price you paid to generate a profit.

As previously stated, the Spread for heavily traded (liquid) cryptocurrencies is negligible – a fraction of one percent – but it does grow for more obscure coins, making it important if you believe you can make a profit trading the next Moonshot.

Adding a Spread Inadvertently

Crypto Exchange Development works by bringing buyers and sellers together and enabling the exchange at the best possible price for both parties. The gap is a natural result of the amount of available liquidity. The exchange will incentivize major traders to come in and create liquidity by lowering the fee as the volume traded grows.

However, exchanges do not have a monopoly on buying and selling cryptocurrency; they are happy to collaborate with third-party brokers that attract consumers who want to acquire cryptocurrency but do not want to connect directly with the market. The broker may use their spread to increase their profit, or they can provide a synthetic market called a CFD (contract for difference), just a simulated version of the actual market.

This exaggerated Spread technique is what occurs with the vast number of financial service Apps currently giving the option of purchasing cryptocurrencies, such as Paypal and Robinhood, and is the model that Coinbase employs; the genuine exchange where transactions take place is Coinbase Pro.

The analogy with betting is appropriate since the spread is an implicit cost, just as there is an implied cost of making a wager that the vast majority of bettors are ignorant of. It is the difference between an event’s underlying probability (fair/efficient odds) and the probability suggested by the bookmaker’s odds.

As liquidity improves, betting markets supplied by exchanges will trend toward real probability and completely efficient odds, similarly to cryptocurrency exchanges. Fixed odds bookmakers (the default) have an in-built margin, the cost of making a bet, which is applied in the same manner that a crypto broker adds a spread to secure a profit.

To take trading or betting seriously, you must consider the spread’s impact on long-term profitability.