How Do You Buy, Sell & Swap Crypto?
Buying, selling and swapping are different ways of exchanging assets. Here is the beginner version of what is happening.
About a 2–3 minute readBuying and selling
On a centralised exchange, you usually deposit money or crypto into an account and use the exchange’s market to buy or sell assets. The exchange manages much of the process for you.
On a decentralised exchange, or DEX, you normally connect a wallet and swap assets using blockchain-based liquidity.
What is a swap?
A swap means exchanging one cryptoasset for another. On Solana, for example, someone might swap SOL for a token.
What is a trading pair?
Markets are often described as pairs because one asset is being valued or exchanged against another. A GRIFF/SOL pool, for example, contains GRIFF and SOL.
That relationship helps create a market price for swaps between the two assets.
Price impact and slippage
If a market has little liquidity, even a relatively small trade can move the price significantly. This is called price impact. Slippage settings control how much change you are willing to accept before a swap fails.
One of my biggest early lessons came when a 1 SOL test showed roughly 369% price impact. It made it obvious that seeing a token price and actually being able to trade a meaningful amount at that price are very different things.
Check before confirming
Wallet transactions can be difficult or impossible to reverse once confirmed.
You’ve learned the basics
That is enough for now. Pick another short guide when you are ready.
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