This guide explains spot trading to someone who has never placed an order: what you hold, what a trade costs, where your tokens sit, and how a mandate bounds an agent trading spot. The spot profile is the normative text; when this guide and the profile disagree, the profile is right.
It builds one idea at a time, on the perp guide's example: you have
$1,000, and SPCX trades at $100. Buying SPCX here is what the perp
guide called "buying outright": owning SPCX itself, instead of a contract
on its price. The SPCX-USDC market in this guide is illustrative;
the spot markets the specs name today trade SOL for USDC, and work the same
way. The figures use made-up prices and
a simplified book; the OpenBook and
Phoenix venue profiles define the real ones.
1. What spot is
A spot trade swaps one asset for another, now. You buy SPCX by paying USDC, and the SPCX arrives in your account as soon as the trade happens. You own it: there is no contract, no counterparty you still depend on, and nothing that runs out.
That makes spot the simplest instrument there is. What you hold is what you bought, and its value is what it's worth. The things that make a perp dangerous (margin, liquidation, funding) don't exist here.
1.1. The pair: base and quote
A spot market trades a pair of assets, written base-quote: SPCX-USDC
here, or SOL-USDC on the markets the specs name.
In SPCX-USDC |
What it is | |
|---|---|---|
| Base | SPCX | What the market trades. Your position is counted in it. |
| Quote | USDC | What prices are in. A price of $100 means 100 USDC per SPCX. |
Buying gives you base and costs you quote; selling does the reverse. USDC is a token worth one dollar, so the guide writes its amounts in dollars.
1.2. Your first trade
You buy SPCX with your $1,000. For now, ignore what the trade itself costs; the next section adds it. The trade comes down to three numbers:
| Number | Your trade | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| SPCX price | $100 | What one SPCX costs. |
| You spend | $1,000 | Your USDC, all of it. You pay the full price: there is no margin. |
| Position | 10 SPCX | What you hold: $1,000 ÷ $100. |
1.3. As SPCX moves
Your holding is worth your position times the price, and nothing else changes it:
| SPCX | Your 10 SPCX are worth | Change |
|---|---|---|
| $120 | $1,200 | +$200 |
| $100 | $1,000 | $0 |
| $80 | $800 | −$200 |
| $50 | $500 | −$500 |
At $50 you've lost half, and you still hold 10 SPCX: nobody closes your position, and if SPCX comes back, so does your money. The perp guide's long at 5× was liquidated near $82; the same idea at 1× moves exactly like these 10 SPCX, minus funding.
Your $1,000 in SPCX: spot against a perp
Drag where SPCX goes. The blue line is 10 SPCX bought outright; the orange one the same $1,000 as margin on a perp long, at the leverage you choose.
Spot is the straight line through $1,000 at $100: no floor except zero, and no cost of holding. A perp can multiply the line, but pays funding and can be closed for you.
2. The order book
A spot venue like OpenBook or Phoenix matches buyers and sellers in an order book: a list of offers to sell (asks) and offers to buy (bids), by price. The cheapest ask and the dearest bid sit either side of the mid, and the gap between them is the spread.
| Price | SPCX on offer | |
|---|---|---|
| Ask | $100.15 | 100 |
| Ask | $100.10 | 100 |
| Ask (best) | $100.05 | 100 |
| Mid | $100.00 | |
| Bid (best) | $99.95 | 100 |
| Bid | $99.90 | 100 |
You can trade with it two ways:
- A market order takes what's on offer now: a buy fills at the asks, cheapest first, and a sell at the bids. It always fills, at whatever the book has.
- A limit order names your price and rests on the book until someone trades with it. It never pays more than you said, but it may never fill.
Each fill also pays the venue a fee, a small share of what you traded, usually less for the resting side (the maker) than for the side that took it (the taker).
So the real ticket for your first trade, a market buy with a 2 bp taker fee:
| Number | Your trade | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| SPCX price | $100.05 | The best ask: the mid plus half the $0.10 spread. |
| You spend | $1,000 | Your USDC. |
| Fee | $0.20 | 2 bp of $1,000. |
| Position | 9.993 SPCX | ($1,000 − $0.20) ÷ $100.05. |
For your 10 SPCX, the book's first level is deep enough, and the whole cost is about $0.70. A big order is different: it uses up the first level and moves on to dearer ones, so its average price gets worse the more it buys. That difference from the mid is slippage.
What a trade costs on the book
SPCX's mid is $100 and the book has the same size at every $0.05 level. Choose how much to trade and how; the curve is the average price for every size.
For a small order the cost is the half-spread and the fee. For a large one, slippage takes over, and it grows with the size: each SPCX more goes further down the book.
3. Where your SPCX is
On a Solana venue, your tokens move between your wallet and the venue's accounts as you trade. They are yours wherever they are, and the spot profile counts them all as your position:
| Where | What sits there | Free to move? |
|---|---|---|
| Wallet | Your SPCX and your USDC, as tokens | Yes |
| On the venue, free | What your fills paid you, not yet withdrawn: on OpenBook in your open orders account, on Phoenix in your seat | Yes, once you settle it back to the wallet |
| On the venue, locked | What your resting orders offer: SPCX behind your asks, USDC behind your bids | No, until the order fills or you cancel it |
Say you hold 10 SPCX and rest an ask for 4 of them on OpenBook. Your wallet has 6 SPCX, 4 are locked on OpenBook, and your position is still 10 SPCX: you haven't sold anything until the ask fills.
Your wallet also holds some SOL, which pays your transaction fees. It isn't part of your position, and on a SOL-USDC market the profiles count only wrapped SOL, the token form of SOL that venues trade, for the same reason.
4. Parameters
What a spot market is, as the specs and a venue describe it:
| Parameter | Who sets it | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Instrument reference | The mandate | <venue>:spot:<symbol>, such as openbook:spot:SOL-USDC, a market the venue profile names. |
max_position |
The mandate | The most of the base asset the account may hold, wherever it is. |
sides |
The mandate | Whether the agent may buy, sell, or both. |
min_sell_price, max_buy_price |
The mandate | The worst prices at which the agent may sell or buy. |
| Market address, base and quote | The venue profile | Which market a symbol names, and its two tokens. |
| Reference prices | The venue profile | The prices holdings are valued at, such as a Pyth price feed. |
| Lot size and tick size | The venue | The smallest step in size and in price an order can take. |
| Fees | The venue | What each fill costs, as maker and as taker. |
5. Risks
6. When to use it, and when not to
7. Spot under a mandate
The mandate covers spot too. For a spot instrument:
- The position is your holdings of the base asset, wherever they are: wallet, free and locked on every venue. Two allowances on SPCX, one on OpenBook and one on Phoenix, limit the same SPCX.
sidessays whether the agent may buy, sell, or both. It covers resting orders too: under a sell-only mandate, a bid that never fills still breaks it.min_sell_priceandmax_buy_pricelimit every fill, not the average: one SPCX sold below the floor breaks the mandate.- The drawdown limit is optional. A mandate to sell SPCX usually has none, since the holding falls with SPCX whatever the agent does.
8. Check yourself
Three questions for each idea, all on SPCX. Work each one out on the ticket first (price, what you spend, position), then open the answer.
8.1. Owning SPCX
You buy SPCX at $100 with $1,000, ignoring costs. SPCX rises to $120. What are your SPCX worth?
$1,200. You hold 10 SPCX, and 10 × $120 = $1,200.
You hold 10 SPCX, bought at $100. SPCX falls to $50. Are you liquidated?
No. Spot can't be liquidated: you hold 10 SPCX worth $500, and if SPCX comes back, so does your money. A perp long at 5× would have been closed near $82.
You think SPCX will fall and you hold no SPCX. Can you bet on it with spot?
No. Spot only sells what you hold. To gain from a fall you'd short a perp, or borrow SPCX to sell, which is a money market, not spot.
8.2. The order book
The best bid is $99.95, the best ask $100.05, and the fee 2 bp. You buy 10 SPCX with a market order and sell them straight back. What did the round trip cost?
$1.40. You pay 10 × $100.05 plus 2 bp ($1,000.70), and receive 10 × $99.95 less 2 bp ($999.30): the spread is $1.00 and the fees $0.40.
The book has 100 SPCX at every $0.05 from a best ask of $100.05. You buy 250 SPCX with a market order. What's your average price?
$100.09. You take 100 at $100.05, 100 at $100.10 and 50 at $100.15: $25,022.50 ÷ 250.
You rest a bid at $99.95 instead of buying at the ask. What do you gain, and what do you risk?
You save the spread and the taker fee, but you only buy if a seller comes down to $99.95. If SPCX rises instead, you never fill, and buy later at a higher price.
8.3. Where your SPCX is
You hold 10 SPCX and rest an ask for 4 of them on OpenBook. What's your position?
10 SPCX. The 4 are locked behind your ask, but still yours until it fills.
You have 6 SPCX in your wallet, 4 on OpenBook and 5 on Phoenix. Your mandate allows both venues with max_position: 12. Have you broken it?
Yes. A spot position is your holdings of the asset wherever they are: 6 + 4 + 5 = 15 SPCX, over 12 on both allowances.
Your ask fills on OpenBook as a maker, and nobody has consumed the event heap yet. Have you sold?
Yes. The fill happened, and an enforcer counts it from the venue's records: the fill waits in the heap as an event. Your open orders account shows it once the heap is consumed, or at once if the taker's transaction settled it.
8.4. The mandate
Your mandate is sell-only. You rest a bid to buy 1 SPCX back cheaply, and it never fills. Have you broken it?
Yes. The sides rule covers open orders as well as fills.
Your min_sell_price is $94. A market sell of 3,000 SPCX averages $95.20, but its last SPCX sells at $93.90. Have you broken it?
Yes. The limit applies to every fill, not the average.
Why does a mandate to sell 30,000 SOL usually have no drawdown limit?
Because the holding's value falls with SPCX whatever the agent does. A drawdown limit would measure the market, not the agent.
9. Glossary
Every term this guide uses is in the glossary. In the text, an underlined term shows its definition when you hover it or tap it.