Robinhood Crypto glossary

The bid-ask spread is the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay (best bid price) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept (best ask price).

For crypto, the price we show in the app is the mark price, which is the midpoint between the bid price and the ask price. For example, if the bid price is $0.10 and the ask price is $0.20, the mark price is $0.15.

Robinhood Crypto shows real-time market data for buying and selling crypto. For details, check out Which crypto are available on Robinhood Crypto?

Bitcoin, created in 2009, is the first decentralized crypto. Like many crypto, it’s not tied to any government or issuing authority, and there’s typically no intermediary involved when it’s used to purchase goods. Check out Buying and selling crypto to learn more.

A blockchain is a digital, decentralized ledger of crypto transactions. The Bitcoin and Ethereum networks are both blockchains where all transactions in those assets are recorded.

Buying power is the amount of money you can use to purchase crypto.

Crypto are digital currencies created and stored electronically on a blockchain using cryptography (also known as crypto) to control their creation and to verify the transfer of funds. Crypto is unique because it doesn't have any physical form and exists only on a network.

Like Bitcoin, Ethereum is a digital currency based on blockchain technology. Though the applications of Ethereum extend beyond currency, the coin, technically called ether, is a tradable asset on Robinhood. Its symbol is ETH. Check out Buying and selling crypto to learn more about trading Ethereum on Robinhood.

You can switch between placing trades in fractional amounts of the crypto and placing trades in dollar amounts by selecting Buy/Sell in USD or the selected crypto on the order screen. For details, check out Buying and selling crypto.

Good-til-canceled refers to a type of order you can place. A GTC order will remain open until you cancel it, or it’s filled. At Robinhood, a GTC order will expire after 90 calendar days.

With a Robinhood Instant or Robinhood Gold account, you have instant access to funds from bank deposits and proceeds from sales.* This means that if you sell crypto today, you can use the funds right away, instead of waiting the typical 2 trading days for access to those funds.

*The amount of funds made available instantly depends on your account type and the source of the funds from a sale. Funds from recent stock, ETF, and options sales may not be available instantly for buying crypto.

A limit order allows you to choose the price you’d like to buy or sell an asset for, so that if the asset rises or falls within that range it’ll get executed at that price or better.

For example, if ABC is trading at $10, you can place a limit buy order at $9, which will execute when ABC is offered at $9 or lower in the market. The same is true for limit sell orders: you can specify the minimum amount you’re willing to receive when you sell your asset.

Check out Limit orders to learn more.

A limit price lets you choose a specific price that you’re willing to buy or receive for an asset. For a buy order, the limit price is the maximum amount you’ll pay. For a sell order, the limit price is the minimum amount you’ll receive.

A market order is an order that will execute at the next price in the market. Be careful, though, because crypto that’s highly volatile can change price quickly, and you’re never guaranteed a price with a market order.

To help combat dramatic price moves, we adjust market orders to limit orders collared up to 1% for buy orders, and 5% for sell orders. This means your order won’t execute if the price of the crypto moves more than 5% lower than its price at the time you placed a market sell order, or more than 1% higher than its price when you placed a market buy order. Market orders that don't execute after 5 minutes may be automatically canceled.

A partial execution occurs when only some of your order is filled. Before an order can execute, a buyer and seller must be on both sides of the trade. If the market doesn’t have enough shares at your limit price, it may take multiple trades to fill the entire order.