Unsure about what we mean by bid and ask? This help article breaks it down simply.
If you're reading this article, you may have questions about how order books work and how what we mean by "bid" and "ask". Thankfully this is all pretty simple.
Ask VS bid
An Ask:
An ask is the price sellers are asking for by selling you the asset in question.
A Bid ( SHOWN IN X COLOUR)
A bid is the price buyers are bidding to buy from you.
Any bids and asks in the order book are waiting to be executed, or filled.
When placing a limit order, you can add your own order to the asks if you're selling, or instead add to the bids if you're buying. Then wait until your order is filled.
When placing a market order, you can buy or sell right away from the available asks or bids without needing to wait.
For example:
Let's say you want to buy some Bitcoin for USD. To do that you are required to select the BTC/USD pairing in the top left of the dashboard.
The default dashboard looks like this:
Check out the order book in the middle to see how much people are buying (bids) and selling (ads) for, enter your order and confirm.
If you're wondering what the spread is, that's just the difference between the highest bid and the lowest ask.
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