Market Basics

What this section covers

• 24/7 Crypto Markets — Understand what continuous crypto trading really means, why liquidity still changes by time and day, and how weekends and session overlaps affect market behaviour.
• Crypto Price Quotations — Learn how crypto pairs are quoted, how base and quote assets work, and why bid, ask, last, mark and index prices can differ across venues.
• Market Capitalisation — Learn how crypto market capitalisation is calculated, how it differs from fully diluted valuation, and why market cap is useful but incomplete as a valuation measure.
• Circulating Supply — Understand circulating supply, how it differs from total and maximum supply, and why token issuance, burns and unlocks matter to crypto valuation and trading.
• Trading Volume and Liquidity — Learn the difference between crypto trading volume and liquidity, how spread, depth and slippage affect execution, and why headline volume can be misleading.

5 guides, about 20 minutes of reading, written for novice level.

Questions these guides answer

• Does Bitcoin ever close?
• Are weekends always more volatile?
• Should I trade around the clock?
• What does BTC/USD = 90,000 mean?
• Why do some platforms use USDT rather than USD?
• What is a mark price?
• Is a higher market cap safer?
• Can market cap rise without much new money entering?