#TradingPairs101

When I first entered the trading world, I thought all currencies were bought with dollars only. 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're trading in might not have enough liquidity or behaves 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 tied to the dollar and their price is clear. Whereas 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, but I want to swap between projects. I’ve 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; I no longer trade just because I saw a currency rising; I need to see which currency I will trade it with and how this pair has moved over the past days. I learned to monitor the volume, liquidity, and spread before I open the trade. And this is a big difference from the old days when I used to just hit buy and that was it.