#TradingPairs101

When I first entered the world of trading, I thought that all currencies were only bought with dollars. I didn't know there was something called trading pairs, nor what the difference was between BTC/USDT and ETH/BTC, for example. After a while of learning and experimenting, I began to understand that choosing the right trading pair has a significant impact on the trade. Sometimes the currency itself is good, but the pair you are trading in may not have enough liquidity or may behave strangely.

One of the things I learned is that some pairs are more stable and easier to predict their movements, like pairs against USDT, because they are tied to the dollar and their price is clear. As for pairs against currencies like BTC or ETH, their movements are more complex, because you are tracking two currencies at the same time, not just one.

I always ask myself before any trade: What is the pair that gives me the best price and execution? Do I need to convert my profits back to dollars or invest them in another asset? Many times I use pairs against BNB or BTC because I don’t want to go back to cash, but I want to switch between projects. I have come to know that choosing the pair depends on my goal for the trade, and on the overall market condition.

Choosing the pair has become part of my decision-making; I no longer trade just because I saw a currency rising. I need to see with which currency I will be trading, and how this pair has moved over the past few days. I learned to monitor the volume, liquidity, and spread before I open a trade. This is a big difference from the old days when I would just click buy and that was it.