#TradingPairs101

When I first entered the trading world, I thought that all currencies were bought only with dollars; I didn't know there was something called trading pairs, nor the difference between BTC/USDT and ETH/BTC, for example. After some time 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 move strangely.

One of the things I learned is that some pairs are more stable and easier to predict their movements, like the 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 started asking 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 swap between projects. I learned that choosing the pair depends on my goal for the trade and the overall market condition.

Choosing the pair became part of my decision-making; I no longer trade just because I saw a currency rising, I have to see which currency I will trade against and how this pair has moved in the past days. I learned to monitor volume, liquidity, and spread before opening the trade. And this is a big difference from the old days when I used to just hit buy and that was it.