How it works
You place a buy order at the displayed price and pay the full quote amount. The exchange transfers the asset into your account. You now own the coin and can withdraw it to a self-custody wallet at any time. Selling reverses the process: you give back the coin and receive the proceeds in stablecoin or fiat.
Example
You spot buy 0.1 BTC at $43,000. You pay $4,300. The 0.1 BTC lands in your exchange wallet within seconds. If BTC rises to $50,000, your holding is worth $5,000, an unrealised gain of $700. You can hold, sell back to stablecoin, or withdraw to a hardware wallet. No margin to maintain, no liquidation risk, no funding cost.
Why it matters
Spot is the cleanest crypto exposure: you own the underlying asset outright. It is the right product for long-term conviction holdings, dollar-cost-averaging strategies, and anyone uncomfortable with the funding and liquidation mechanics of perpetuals. The trade-off is capital efficiency: the same dollar profit requires more capital than a leveraged derivative would need.
