#TradingPairs101

When I first entered the trading world, I thought that all currencies were only bought with dollars. I didn't know there was something called trading pairs, nor the difference between BTC/USDT and ETH/BTC, for example. After a period 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 movement, like pairs against USDT, because they are linked to the dollar and their price is clear. On the other hand, pairs against currencies like BTC or ETH have more complex movements because you are tracking two currencies at the same time, not just one.

I always started asking myself before any trade: What pair 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; I just want to swap between projects. I came 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; I no longer trade just because I saw a currency rising; I need to see which currency I am going to trade against, and how this pair has moved in the past few days. I learned to monitor the volume, liquidity, and spread before opening a trade. And this is a big difference from the old days when I would just hit buy and that was it.