Crypto trading has a vocabulary, and most of the costly beginner mistakes start with a word that was nodded at rather than understood. This glossary defines the everyday terms in plain language, the way they are actually used at Great Dane Pro — calmly, with no hype and no promises. Use it as a reference while you read the rest of the pillar.
The market itself
- Crypto market — the always-on venues where cryptocurrencies trade. Unlike the stock market, it never closes, so price can move while you sleep.
- Pair — what you trade against what, written as BASE/QUOTE, such as BTC/USD. The quote currency is what the price is measured in.
- Order book — the live list of buy orders (bids) and sell orders (asks) waiting at each price. It is where price is discovered, moment to moment.
- Liquidity — how much can be traded without moving the price much. Thin liquidity makes fills worse and costs higher.
Price and the costs of moving through it
- Bid and ask — the best price someone will buy at, and the best price someone will sell at. You buy at the ask and sell at the bid.
- Spread — the gap between the bid and the ask. Crossing it is a cost you pay the instant you trade at market.
- Slippage — the difference between the price you expected and the price you actually got. It grows when liquidity is thin or markets are fast.
- Fees — what the exchange charges per trade, often split into maker (you add liquidity) and taker (you remove it) rates.
Reading the chart
- Candlestick — a single bar showing the open, high, low, and close over one period. Its body and wicks summarise a stretch of trading.
- Timeframe — what one candle represents: a minute, an hour, a day. The same chart tells different stories on different timeframes.
- Volatility — how far and how fast price swings. More volatility means larger moves in both directions, which is risk, not opportunity by itself.
Judging an outcome
- Drawdown — the fall from a previous high in your account. A 20% drawdown needs a larger 25% gain just to get back to even.
- Cost-to-beat — fees plus spread plus slippage plus a safety buffer: the hurdle every trade must clear before it makes a cent.
- Edge — the expected move a trade aims to capture. An edge only counts once it clears the cost-to-beat.
These terms reappear throughout the pillar. To see them at work, read how to read a crypto candlestick chart and the crypto order book, spreads, and liquidity. For the way costs add up into a single hurdle, see the true cost of a crypto trade. Nothing here is financial advice.