Market Order
An order to buy or sell immediately at the best available current price.
In-Depth Explanation
Market orders guarantee execution but not price—you get whatever the market offers. In liquid markets, this is fine. In thin markets, market orders can suffer severe slippage as they eat through the order book. Most DEX swaps are effectively market orders against liquidity pools.
Related Terms
Limit Order
An order to buy or sell at a specific price or better, which executes only if the market reaches that price.
Slippage
The difference between the expected price of a trade and the actual executed price.
Price Impact
The effect a trade has on the market price of an asset, proportional to trade size relative to liquidity.
More in Trading & Markets
View all →Slippage
The difference between the expected price of a trade and the actual executed price.
Maximal Extractable Value
MEVValue that can be extracted by reordering, inserting, or censoring transactions within a block.
Sandwich Attack
An MEV extraction technique where an attacker places transactions before and after a victim's trade to profit from the price impact.
Frontrunning
Placing a transaction ahead of a known pending transaction to profit from the anticipated price movement.