What is a limit order?
A limit order buys or sells only at a price you set or better. A buy limit sits below the current price and fills only if the market comes down to it, a sell limit sits above it. You control the price but not whether the order fills: if the market never gets there, nothing happens.
From the Staxo crypto glossary. The examples use Kraken daily candles (UTC), Oct 10, 2025 to Oct 10, 2026, for the eight coins on Staxo's free plan that are not stablecoins.
How buy and sell limit orders work
A buy limit is placed below the current price, a sell limit above it. With Ethereum at its Oct 10, 2026 close of $2,504, a buy limit 5% lower says "buy ETH, but only at $2,379 or less", and a sell limit 5% higher says "sell, but only at $2,629 or more". The order waits in the exchange's order book until the market reaches your price, then fills at that price or a better one. If the market never gets there, nothing happens, and you can cancel the order at any time.
Because a resting limit order adds liquidity to the book, it is a "maker" order, and many exchanges charge makers lower fees than takers. Large limit orders can fill in parts, as other traders' orders meet them. A sell limit above your entry works as a take-profit.
How often a buy limit below the price fills
The daily candles show how low each coin traded every day. If the day's low reached a buy limit set below the previous close, that order would have filled at some point that day.
| Coin | 3% below | 5% below | 10% below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cardano | 160 | 74 | 9 |
| Dogecoin | 137 | 66 | 6 |
| Solana | 129 | 54 | 7 |
| XRP | 120 | 47 | 6 |
| Ethereum | 108 | 47 | 6 |
| BNB | 72 | 27 | 6 |
| Bitcoin | 68 | 15 | 2 |
| TRON | 19 | 3 | 0 |
A buy limit 3% under the previous close would have filled on 160 days for Cardano and on 19 days for TRON. For Bitcoin it was 68 days, about one day in 5. Move the limit to 10% below and the fills almost disappear: 2 days for Bitcoin. The further away the limit, the better the price and the fewer the fills.
The trade-off: price against certainty
A limit order protects you from paying more than you planned, which matters most in thin markets and in fast moves. Its cost is the trade you miss: if the price runs away without touching your level, you end up without a position. Traders who set limits too far away often watch the move they predicted happen without them.
Daily candles also hide the order of events. A low that touched your limit may have come before a further fall that same day, so a filled buy limit is not automatically a good entry. That is why limit entries are usually paired with a stop-loss.
How to practice it in Staxo
Staxo fills every trade as a market order, and it does not have limit orders. You can still practice the habit that matters, which is deciding your price before the market tempts you. Pick a free-plan coin, write down the price you are willing to pay, and buy with your demo money only when the price on the coin screen reaches it.
Keep a note of the limits you set and how many of them the market reached. After a few weeks you will see how far below the price your levels can be before you start missing every move.
Free on iPhone and Android, $500 in demo money. Also on Google Play.Also on the App Store.
Limit order questions
What is the difference between a limit order and a stop-loss?
A buy limit sits below the price and fills only if the price falls to it, at that price or better. A stop-loss sits below the price of a coin you own and sells it if the price falls to it, usually as a market order, so the fill price is not guaranteed.
Do limit orders always fill?
No. A limit order fills only if the market trades at your price or better, and even then a large order may fill only in part. If the price never reaches your level, the order stays open until you cancel it or it expires.
Try it with $500 in demo money.
Free download, no card. Also on Google Play.Also on the App Store.
Educational content, not investment advice. The examples describe prices from Oct 10, 2025 to Oct 10, 2026 and say nothing about where they go next. Staxo is a simulator: you practice with demo money, never real money.