Market structure 6 minFREE
Order books, depth and slippage
Why the price you click isn't the price you get.
The order book shows resting orders at each price. Depth is how much can be traded before the price moves by a given percentage.
A market order doesn't get “the price”: it walks the book, filling the best offer, then the next, then the next. The difference between the price you saw and the average you paid is slippage.
- On bitcoin, millions of dollars can trade within a few dollars of the price.
- On a small coin, a $5,000 market order can move the price by several percent.
- On fresh listings, depth changes by the minute — and can vanish.
What to do about it
- Check the depth before a sizeable order: the simulator's futures desk does this with Bitget's real book.
- Use limit orders on thin markets: you choose the price, at the risk of not being filled.
- Split large orders into smaller ones.
- Count slippage in your risk: a stop-loss on a thin market can fill well below its trigger.
Check what you’ve learned
Two questions from this lesson. Get both right to mark it as done.