Limit Order

A limit order specifies the exact price at which you're willing to trade, providing price certainty at the cost of execution uncertainty. A buy limit at $100 executes only if the price drops to $100 or below; a sell limit at $110 executes only if price rises to $110 or above. If the market never reaches your specified price, the order never fills, you maintain your position but miss potential opportunities. Limit orders are fundamental to order book markets, where they provide liquidity and define the price levels at which trades can occur. Professional traders use limit orders to avoid slippage: rather than accepting whatever price the market offers, they specify acceptable prices and wait. This is especially important for large orders where market orders would move price against the trader. Time-in-force parameters control how long orders remain active: Good-Till-Cancelled (GTC) persists indefinitely; Immediate-Or-Cancel (IOC) fills immediately or cancels; Fill-Or-Kill (FOK) fills completely or cancels entirely. On-chain limit orders present technical challenges because blockchain latency makes traditional order matching slow. Specialized protocols like 0x and CoW Protocol implement limit orders through off-chain order books with on-chain settlement, while some DEXs integrate limit functionality through keeper networks that execute when conditions are met.