Spot trading means you buy a cryptocurrency at the current market price, pay immediately and have the coin credited to your account straight away. There is no contract for a later date and no borrowed money. If the price falls, the value of your holding drops, but nobody forcibly closes your position. That is precisely what separates spot trading from futures, perpetuals and margin trading, and it is why beginners should almost always start here.
Friday morning showed how big the difference is in practice. On November 13, bitcoin traded at around $69,200 on the OKX exchange, just over 6 percent below the previous day's level. In the euro pair, the price was about 62,550 euros. Anyone who bought their coins on the spot market sees a paper loss and can wait. Anyone who placed the same bet with 20x leverage will, as a rule, already have lost their position in a pullback like this. This explainer shows you how the spot market works, how it differs from futures products and what that means for custody.
What is spot trading? Buying at the current price with immediate delivery
The spot market, also cal...
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