What Is Spread?
The gap between the best bid and the best ask. The spread is an implicit cost you pay on every round trip. Major perpetuals like BTC trade with spreads of a fraction of a basis point on liquid exchanges.
Related Terms
- Order Book The live list of all outstanding buy orders, called bids, and sell orders, called asks, for a market.
- Liquidity How easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving its price.
- Maker A trader whose limit order adds liquidity to the order book and waits to be filled.
Where You Will Meet This Term
You will run into spread constantly on any futures exchange, from the order panel to the position dashboard. If you are still building your foundation, our guides on leverage, liquidation and risk management connect the vocabulary into an actual trading process, and the full glossary covers every other term you will encounter.