What Is Slippage? Why the Price You See Isn't the Price You Get
Slippage is the gap between the price you expect and the price you get when a trade fills. Here's why it happens and how to reduce it.
The price shown on screen right before you place a trade isn't a guarantee of the price you'll pay, on Bitval or any exchange. That gap has a name: slippage.
What Slippage Is
Slippage is the difference between the price you expected when placing an order and the price at which it fills. It happens most with market orders, since a market order fills against whatever is sitting in the order book at that moment rather than at a fixed price. If the price moves, or if there isn't enough volume at the price you saw, the order fills at a worse average price than expected.
Why It Happens
Slippage comes from two related factors: how fast the market is moving, and how much depth sits in the order book near the current price. In a fast-moving market, the price can shift in the fraction of a second between when you click and when the order executes. In a thin order book, a large order has to work through several price levels to fully fill, since not enough volume sits at the best price alone. Both situations push the average fill price away from what you initially saw.
Why Limit Orders Don't Have This Problem
A limit order sets the exact price you're willing to trade at, so it either fills at that price or better, or it doesn't fill at all. This eliminates slippage entirely, at the cost of certainty: your order might sit unfilled if the market never reaches your price. It's a direct tradeoff between price control and execution certainty.
How to Reduce Slippage
Checking Bitval's order book before placing a large market order gives you a sense of how much volume sits near the current price. Breaking a large order into smaller pieces, or switching to a limit order, are the two most direct ways to reduce slippage's impact. Trading during periods of higher liquidity, when more orders are sitting in the book, also tends to reduce it.
Where to See This
Bitval's order book and trading interface show live depth before you place an order, so you can gauge expected slippage ahead of time rather than discovering it after the fact. If you want to see this directly, you can check the order book on Bitval here.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.
