Now that you’ve opened and verified and also funded your QuadrigaCX account, you are ready to trade some Canadian dollars and US dollars for bitcoins and ethereum. This post will explain how to make a trade on cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX.
After logging into your QuadrigaCX account, choose the “Trade” tab from the main menu. When on the “Trade” menu, you will see the current order book displayed for the default market (btc/cad) with the bids displayed on the left side of the page and the offers displayed on the right side. Stacked on top of the order book are order entry modules that you can use to place your order.
If you are unfamiliar with how a market works and/or how prices are formed, the first thing you do is examine the current bids and offers. The bids and offers listed are orders from other users who have placed orders to either buy or sell at certain prices. For example, if you see a bid price of $4,000 CAD for 2 BTC, this means that someone (or a number of users) has placed an order to buy 2 bitcoins at a price of $4,000 CAD. Oppositely, if you see an offer for 2 BTC at $4,010 CAD, this means that someone (or a number of users) has placed an order to sell 2 bitcoins at a price of $4,010 CAD.
The “price” of bitcoins is simply the last time that a bid or an offer was matched. If you want to buy bitcoins with Canadian dollars, then examine the offers. Using the example above, the lowest price offered is $4,010 CAD for 2 BTC. This means that you can buy up to 2 BTC at a price of $4,010 CAD. If you want to buy 0.10 BTC, and this price meets your objective, then go ahead and enter your order to make a transaction. Using the BUY side order entry module on the left side of the order book, enter a price of $4,010 and quantity of 0.10 BTC. As you enter your order details, you will see that the order entry module dynamically updates to reflect your inputs. This helps you confirm the price and amount you wish to enter.
Once you have input your desired price and quantity, and reviewed your order, simply press the “buy” button located within the order entry module, and your order will be sent to the market. If the current offer was $4,010 and you enter an order to buy at this price, your order will be matched and filled. This will mean you purchase bitcoins at this price.
Conversely, if you’d like to sell bitcoins, the same mechanics are used to sell, but instead of trying to pay the lowest price, you are trying to sell at the highest.
Maybe you’d like to buy bitcoins, but only if they reach a certain lower level. Maybe you’ve determined that a price of $3,500 is the highest price you are willing to pay. You can enter these details in the order entry module, and your order will be sent to the order book where it waits until the market falls to this price, or you cancel your order. This is called a “limit” order. From what I can tell, there is no time limit to how long orders can sit.
