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What Is Cryptocurrency Trading

Cryptocurrency trading is the buying and selling of coins that exist only as entries on a shared network, at prices set on exchanges that never close, either as the coin itself or as a CFD at a broker. This paper shows what a coin is, why its market has no hours, how a real day of bitcoin looks on a chart and in dollars at three lot sizes, and what the Crypto folder and its Specification say on a platform. After reading it you can find a coin on your platform, read its lot, margin and hours, and say what a day's move is worth at your size.

Difficulty
Intermediate
Reading time
5 min
Pages
8
Reviewed by
Saman Rahbar

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Cryptocurrency trading, in five lines

A cryptocurrency is money that exists only as entries on a shared network, with no bank or state behind it, and cryptocurrency trading is the buying and selling of those coins at prices set on exchanges. There are two ways in. On a coin exchange you hold the coin itself; at a broker you hold a CFD, a contract that follows the coin's price. The coin trades every hour of every day, though a broker's feed may not. One lot, the unit of size, is one coin at this broker, and 0.01 lot is a hundredth of a coin. On Wednesday 19 August 2026 bitcoin ran from 64,156.39 to 69,589.07 dollars in this library's bars, 5,432.68 in one day.

A coin on a network

Picture a coin on a network. The dots are computers all over the world, each keeping the same list of who owns what, and the coin is a line on that list rather than a thing in a vault. No mint makes it, no bank holds it, no office opens or closes it. The price is wherever the last trade happened, on whichever exchange it happened. That is why the market never sleeps: the list is always running, so the price is always moving.

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