<a href="/en/glossary/trading-concepts/arbitrage/" target="_blank">Arbitrage</a> means exploiting the opportunity when the same thing is priced differently in different places — buying low and simultaneously selling high to capture the nearly risk-free spread. In crypto, the most common forms are the same coin quoted at different prices on different exchanges, or price inconsistencies across different trading pairs. In theory arbitrage is risk-free, but in practice it's compressed by fees, transfer speed, <a href="/en/glossary/onchain-agent/slippage/">Slippage</a>, and professional bots, so retail can rarely execute it consistently.

A bull market refers to a sustained upward price trend in assets, usually accompanied by strengthening investor confidence, increasing trading volume, and optimistic market sentiment; a bear market is the opposite — a sustained downward trend accompanied by pessimistic sentiment, liquidity contraction, and large numbers of holders facing losses. Both terms come from animal attack posture analogies: a bull thrusts upward (rising prices), a bear swipes downward (falling prices). Crypto market bull and bear cycles are typically more extreme than traditional equities — rallying ten-fold and falling eighty percent — and each cycle is often closely correlated with Bitcoin's halving events.

A candlestick chart is the most fundamental and widely used chart form in technical analysis. Each candlestick represents four prices over a time period (such as 1 minute, 1 hour, or 1 day): the open, close, high, and low. A candlestick uses a rectangular body (showing the range between open and close) plus upper and lower wicks (showing the high and low extensions) to display these four numbers. A green (or white) body means close was above open (bullish); red (or black) means close was below open (bearish).

<a href="/en/glossary/trading-concepts/dollar-cost-averaging/" target="_blank">Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA)</a> is an investment strategy of buying a fixed dollar amount of the same asset at fixed intervals (like weekly or monthly), regardless of price. When price is low, the same amount buys more units; when high, fewer. Over time, the average purchase cost is smoothed naturally, avoiding the risk of deploying a large lump sum at a market peak. It requires no market prediction — one of the simplest, least judgment-intensive disciplines for long-term accumulation.

<a href="/en/glossary/trading-concepts/macd/" target="_blank">MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence)</a> is one of the most widely used momentum indicators in technical analysis, developed by Gerald Appel in the 1970s. It consists of three components: the **MACD line** (fast EMA 12 minus slow EMA 26), the **signal line** (EMA 9 of the MACD line), and the **histogram** (MACD line minus signal line). MACD simultaneously captures both trend direction and momentum strength: MACD line crossing above the signal line is a bullish crossover; crossing below is bearish; histogram size and color represent momentum strength and direction.

The EU's comprehensive crypto regulatory framework, passed in 2023 and fully in force since late 2024, requiring exchanges, <a href="/en/glossary/defi-basics/stablecoin/">Stablecoin</a> issuers, and crypto service providers serving EU users to hold an official license — with a 'passport' mechanism letting one national license cover all 27 member states.

A moving average (MA) is one of the most foundational technical analysis indicators: summing the closing prices of the past N periods and averaging them to form a smooth curve that filters out short-term market noise and makes trend direction more visible. Two most common types: Simple Moving Average (SMA) gives equal weight to each price; Exponential Moving Average (EMA) gives higher weight to recent prices for more sensitive response. MAs don't predict the future — they describe current market direction.

A real-time list on an exchange of all buy and sell orders, arranged by price. The gap between the highest price buyers will pay (bids) and the lowest price sellers will accept (asks) is the spread. The <a href="/en/glossary/trading-concepts/order-book/" target="_blank">Order Book</a> lets you see the market's current supply, demand, and liquidity depth.

<a href="/en/glossary/trading-concepts/rsi/" target="_blank">RSI (Relative Strength Index)</a> is one of the most commonly used momentum indicators, developed by J. Welles Wilder in 1978. It oscillates between 0 and 100, measuring the relative overbought or oversold condition of the current market by calculating the ratio of average gains to average losses over the past N periods (typically 14). Traditional interpretation: RSI above 70 enters the overbought zone (potentially means the short-term rally has been too sharp); below 30 enters the oversold zone (potentially means the short-term decline has been excessive). RSI is a speed indicator, not a direction indicator, and does not predict future price movement.

Slippage is the gap between your expected trade price and the actual execution price. In decentralized exchanges (DEXs), the swap 'quote' you see is only an estimate at the moment you send the transaction; when your order is actually packed and executed, other transactions have also been changing the liquidity pool's state, so you may receive fewer tokens than quoted. The larger the slippage, the higher the cost; the thinner the liquidity of the trading pair or the larger your order size, the more severe the slippage tends to be.

<a href="/en/glossary/trading-concepts/volume/" target="_blank">Volume (Trading Volume)</a> is the number of units of a crypto asset transacted (coin volume) or the corresponding transaction value (USD volume) within a specific time period. It's one of the most foundational technical analysis indicators, used to evaluate the market participation strength behind a price move. High-volume breakouts have more credibility — many buyers and sellers agree on the price. Low-volume breakouts may be false. Volume is a confirmation indicator: it doesn't show direction itself, but tells you how many participants are supporting the current directional move.