From the book Investing and Trading: Secrets to Success
Learn to interpret the base and quote currencies of a trading pair.
Watch the chapter on video
Our YouTube channel is originally in Spanish. Some videos may not have an English audio track.
Watch on YouTube ↗Our YouTube channel is originally in Spanish. Some videos may not have an English audio track.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
The idea in one minute
In a pair such as BTC/USD, BTC is the base currency and USD is the quote currency: the price shows how many dollars one bitcoin costs. Understanding the pair’s order also helps you define the unit in which you want to measure and accumulate your results.
What to remember
- The first currency is the base; the second expresses its price.
- Gaining units of an asset and gaining dollar value do not always coincide.
- Choosing a measurement unit prevents comparing unlike results.
Put it into practice
Read three pairs and complete this sentence: one unit of the first currency costs this amount of the second.
Want to go deeper?
Find the full discussion and examples in the book Investing and Trading: Secrets to Success.
Browse all chapters
- INIntroduction
- TOCContents
- 01The evolution of trading
- 02Trading and investing
- 03Different markets
- 04Fast and slow leverage
- 05Spot vs. derivatives
- 06D.C.A. strategy
- 07Diversification
- 08Base and quote currencies
- 09How money works
- 10Financial market cycles, BTC halving, and strategy
- 11Reading Japanese candlesticks
- 12Support and resistance
- 13There is no exact science in this field
- 14What moves markets?
- 15How to identify trends
- 16Ranges
- 17Japanese candlestick patterns
- 18Moving averages
- 19The most popular technical indicators
- 20Filling the GAP
- 21Trading styles
- 22Binary options: the biggest garbage ever to exist in the markets
- 23Fundamental analysis and fundamentals
- 24Financial bubbles
- 25Before learning to win, learn to lose
- 26An asset’s average price
- 27Extreme events
- 28Price action: strategies
- 29Liquidity and market makers
- 30The DeFi world: benefits and risks
- 31Scams and risks to avoid
- 32Risk vs. volatility
- 33Arbitrage
- 34Grid trading in Spot and Futures
- 35The shortest path is the longest path
- 36The circle of success
- APAppendix
- ENDFarewell
Video from the original 2024 edition and a summary prepared for this website. References and conditions in the video may have changed.
Educational content. Trading in financial markets involves a risk of loss; past results do not guarantee future results.