Slippage
Slippage: The Cost of Market Impact
Slippage is the difference between expected and actual trade prices. It’s the tax you pay for moving markets when your trade is large relative to available liquidity.
Slippage occurs when the execution price of a trade differs from the expected price due to market movement or insufficient liquidity. Large trades relative to available liquidity create more slippage as they consume multiple price levels.
How Slippage Works
Order book depth determines slippage for traditional exchanges. Large trades consume multiple price levels, with each level offering worse prices than the previous one.
AMM slippage follows mathematical curves where larger trades cause more price impact. A $1000 swap might have 0.1% slippage while a $100,000 swap has 5% slippage.
Market volatility can cause slippage even on small trades when prices move significantly between order submission and execution.
Real-World Examples
- Large DEX trades on Uniswap can face 5-10% slippage during low liquidity periods
- Memecoin trading often has extreme slippage due to shallow liquidity pools
- Front-running bots can increase slippage by trading ahead of pending transactions
Why Beginners Should Care
Hidden costs from slippage can exceed visible trading fees, especially for larger trades or illiquid token pairs with shallow liquidity.
Slippage tolerance settings protect against excessive price impact but may cause transaction failures if markets move beyond acceptable ranges.
Timing matters for reducing slippage – trading during high liquidity periods or splitting large orders into smaller chunks can minimize price impact.
Related Terms: Liquidity, AMM, Price Impact, MEV