Selling On Coinbase/Gemini Vs Coinbase/Gemini Exchange?

[jerry0]

I know fees are less doing it on an exchange.  The reason is because the regular site is easier for people right as you buy or sell just like that?  The thing is when you do it, it's instant?


When you do it on the exchange, you have to wait until someone takes your offer or you take someone's offer?  But if you look at someone's offer and you there is enough, then you can do it in one transaction?



So when you do it on the site, you are buying or selling from Coinbase or Gemini directly from the institution?  But on the exchange, it is other people but it would also include institutions?  So big companies could be buying and you wouldn't have any idea any of your BTC was told so them in an exchange right?

[BattleDog]

Think of the "simple buy/sell" page as a broker. You click buy, they fill you right away at their quote, and you pay for the convenience (higher fees + hidden spread).

The "exchange/advanced" page is the real order book. A market order fills instantly against the best bids/asks; a limit order waits until someone takes it.

You're not trading "with Coinbase/Gemini" in some special way, your counterparty is whoever's on the book, often market makers. Nobody sees your identity, just size and price.

[jerry0]

Say you want to sell 0.05 btc then by exchange.  Say the price of btc is around 100k.  You want to sell it now.  If someone offers 100500 as the best price but only offers to buy 0.02, but the next offer shows 100450 but offers to buy 0.10 btc, that means if you buy 0.05 btc at 100450 price, it will automatically buy 0.02 btc at 105000 price and 0.03 btc at 100450 price then?



The thing is how do you even do the market order when the numbers keep moving so fast then?  So say you want to sell it at minimum 100000 price.  It's a bit above it now.  So you should be able to sell that amount?

[BattleDog]

Yep, your example is basically how it works. If you market-sell 0.05 BTC and the top of book is 0.02 bid at 100,500 and the next is 0.10 bid at 100,450, your order will sweep those levels: 0.02 fills at 100,500 and the remaining 0.03 fills at 100,450. You get a blended average and you pay taker fees for the whole thing.


The price "moving fast" is just the UI distracting your attention, as the matching engine just chews through the book at the moment your order hits.

[rat03gopoh]

If someone offers 100500 as the best price but only offers to buy 0.02, but the next offer shows 100450 but offers to buy 0.10 btc,

It's only a ~0.05% change, why are you worried about that?
You should only worry about short-term volatility if you're planning a large transaction (say $10,000), as a 1% change means $100 per second of your assets. But Bitcoin's liquidity is too great to fluctuate that much, typically only ~0.05-0.1% per second.

If you don't want too much selling price variasions, avoid periods of high volatility. In stable market conditions, just set your best price within that range; there's no need to wait long for it to be filled.

[jerry0]

So you are saying whether you sell a market order or limit order, it's not impossible to get screwed over by buying a worst price then?  So if you want to sell and someone is offering at 100,500 but another person is at 100,450 and another person is offering at 99,000, you would never be selling any btc at 99,000 unless there was no buyers that put orders up right?  Thus this would not happen at an exchange like coinbase or Gemini?



So whether market or limit order, same thing?



The thing that has me confused is this.  Say btc price is 106,000 at the moment.  You want to sell it at 107,000.  If you put a limit order and want it to sell 0.05 btc at 107,000 price, the moment btc price rises and goes over that, then all the order gets filled right?  Are there bots that do this since I heard about that?  Or it's people putting buy orders at 107,000?  So you can put a buy order at 107,000 even if the price currently is 106,000?  I usually think people who do that when they put buy order for 105,000 but it can work both ways?



Now do most people say better to do market order or limit order?



The thing is if you just want to sell at the price showing now, it isn't hard to sell say 0.05 btc price right?  Like say price is 105,000 now and you don't mind selling it anywhere between 100,000 and 110,000.  So you can easily sell that in seconds right since it would be hard for btc to move outside those numbers in a short time usually?