# Crypto Spreads Explained: Why the Buy and Sell Price Differ > Crypto Spreads Explained: Why the Buy and Sell Price Differ Learn Crypto · 7 min read On this page 1. What is the spread, exactly? 2. Why does the spread exist in crypto? 3. "Zero-fee" trading is not actually free 4. How spreads work on different types of venues 5. What you see on Digital Surge before you confirm 6. Does the spread change over time? 7. The short version The spread is the gap between the price you pay to buy crypto and the price you receive to sell it. It exists on every trading venue because someone is always taking the other side of your trade and needs to be compensated for that. On Digital Surge, the quoted price and the fee are both shown on screen before you confirm, so what you see on the order screen is what you pay. You have probably noticed it. The price to buy Bitcoin is slightly higher than the price to sell it, and the gap seems to shift every time you refresh the page. That gap has a name: the spread. It is not a glitch, a hidden charge, or something specific to one platform. It is a normal, structural feature of every market where assets change hands instantly. Understanding it takes about five minutes. After that, you will never look at a quoted price the same way. ## What is the spread, exactly? The spread is the difference between the buy price (what you pay to acquire a coin) and the sell price (what you receive when you sell it). If the buy price for Bitcoin is $105,000 AUD and the sell price is $104,500 AUD, the spread is $500, or roughly 0.5% of that buy price. It is not invented by any one platform. It exists because in any market where trading is instant, someone has to be ready to take the other side of your trade right now, before a willing counterparty has been found. That readiness is not free, and the spread is how it gets paid for. Think of it like a currency exchange at the airport. The board shows one rate to buy euros and a slightly worse rate to sell them. The gap is how the booth covers its costs and stays in business. The rates are visible. The mechanism is the same. ## Why does the spread exist in crypto? Crypto markets run around the clock, across hundreds of venues, with prices that can move sharply in seconds. Anyone providing instant liquidity, meaning anyone who will buy or sell at a quoted price right now without waiting to find the perfect counterparty, takes on real risk in that environment. Two risks in particular drive the spread wider. **Inventory risk.** A liquidity provider holding a stack of Bitcoin while the price drops is losing money on every second that passes. The spread compensates for the chance that will happen. **Adverse-selection risk.** If you are rushing to sell your Bitcoin right now, the person on the other side of the trade has to wonder: do you know something they do not? The spread is partly a hedge against being the last one to find out that a price is about to move. These are not abstract finance-textbook concerns. They show up directly in how wide the spread is for a given coin. Coins that trade heavily and frequently tend to have tighter spreads because liquidity is plentiful and inventory turns over quickly. Smaller or less-traded coins often carry wider spreads because the risk of holding them is harder to offset. ## "Zero-fee" trading is not actually free This is the part that catches people off guard, so it is worth saying plainly: when a platform advertises zero trading fees, the spread does not disappear. It simply moves. On a platform that charges a visible commission, you see two costs: the spread built into the quoted price, and the fee line shown separately. On a "zero-fee" platform, the commission is removed and the margin is recovered entirely inside the spread. The price you are quoted to buy is wider from the price you are quoted to sell, and that gap is doing the same job the fee was doing before. The total cost of the trade may be similar either way. What changes is visibility. A platform that charges a transparent fee alongside a transparent spread gives you numbers you can actually compare. A platform that buries everything in the spread gives you a single quoted price with no line item to interrogate. Neither model is inherently dishonest. But "free" is genuinely misleading when the cost has not been removed, only hidden. ## How spreads work on different types of venues Not all trading venues price the same way, and the spread shows up differently depending on the structure. **Central limit order books.** On an exchange where buyers and sellers post resting orders, the spread is the gap between the highest price any buyer is currently willing to pay (the bid) and the lowest price any seller is currently willing to accept (the ask). You can often see both sides of this openly on the exchange's order book. If you place a market order, you trade at whatever the best available resting price is, which means you cross that spread. **Automated market makers (AMMs).** Decentralised exchanges like Uniswap do not use an order book. Price is set by a formula based on the ratio of two assets sitting in a liquidity pool. There is no quoted bid and ask in the traditional sense. Instead, the cost of trading shows up as slippage: the larger your trade relative to the pool, the more the price moves against you as you execute. The effect is economically similar to a spread, but the mechanism is different. **Broker-style platforms.** A broker quotes you a single price to buy and a single price to sell. The spread is included in that quote. You are not interacting with an order book or a liquidity pool directly: the broker handles that on the back end and gives you a clean, confirmed price. This is the model most everyday buyers use because it is simpler: you see the price, you confirm, the trade is done. ## What you see on Digital Surge before you confirm Digital Surge is a broker-style platform. When you go to buy or sell a coin, you are quoted a price that includes the spread, and the trading fee is shown separately on the same screen before you confirm anything. That means before you tap confirm, you can see: - The price you will pay (or receive) - The fee on the trade, shown separately from the price There is no moment after confirmation where a cost appears that was not visible before. What you see on the order screen is what you pay. This matters most when you are comparing platforms. If another venue quotes you a slightly better headline price but buries a wider spread, the total cost of your trade might be higher than it looks. When both the price and the fee are on screen together, the comparison is at least possible. ## Does the spread change over time? Yes, and it can change quickly. A few things drive it. **Market volatility.** When prices are moving fast, the risk of holding inventory rises, and spreads tend to widen to compensate. You may notice the buy/sell gap on a coin looks larger during a sharp price move than it does on a quiet afternoon. **Trading volume.** Higher volume generally means more liquidity, which means tighter spreads. A coin that trades hundreds of millions of dollars a day globally tends to carry a narrower spread than one with thin order flow. **The coin itself.** Bitcoin and Ethereum, being the most actively traded, typically carry tighter spreads than smaller-cap coins. This is not a platform decision, it reflects underlying liquidity in global markets. None of these are reasons to avoid trading. They are just things worth knowing so you can read a quoted price clearly. ## The short version The spread is the gap between the buy and sell price. It exists on every venue because instant liquidity is not free. On platforms that advertise zero fees, the spread is doing double duty: covering both the liquidity cost and what would otherwise be a commission. On Digital Surge, the spread is in the quoted price and the fee is shown on the same screen, so you can see the full cost before you confirm. That is it. No hidden mechanics, no trick. Just a cost that is worth knowing by name. About the author The Digital Surge Editorial Team Our editorial team writes and reviews Digital Surge’s news, insights and crypto guides, pairing plain-English explanations with the practical experience of running an [Australian cryptocurrency exchange](/about-us/). We keep every article accurate, current and easy to act on. [Read our editorial guidelines ›](/editorial-guidelines/) Learn Crypto ## Learn crypto with confidence We provide clear, straightforward education, making it easy to understand and navigate the world of crypto. [Learn Crypto What is Blockchain? 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