Using an online cryptocurrency exchange can be confusing at first, but once you understand some of the basic concepts, it’s easy. To buy and sell on an exchange confidently, you really just need to understand one concept: the difference between make and take orders.

A Tasty Example

I’ll explain the difference between make and take orders with an example of something we all know well–indulging in candy.

Say you want some candy bars, so you go to the store to buy some. The price is already set ($3 per bar), and — if you were really hungry — you could buy the store out of all of its candy bars.

Mmmm, Snickers

An order, whether it’s for snickers or something else, is an offer of one thing for another thing. The “thing” could be a product, service, entity, object, and other things that people see value in. In this case we are ordering a certain amount of snickers bars for a certain amount of money.

The idea is the same on an exchange, and all online cryptocurrency exchanges follow the same basic rules. There are slight differences, but when you know how to use one, it’s easy to use all of them. I’m going to explain these concepts using ethex.market, which is a new decentralized exchange I work for. It lists useful ERC20 tokens, like DENT.

Taking Orders

At the top of the image is the make area, and at the bottom is the take area. You can interact with either part once you have a wallet linked to the exchange, but let’s look at the take area first.

In the take area, different offers are listed with their price, coin or token amount, and the calculated total (price x amount = total). Again, the price can be one of several different currencies, coins, or tokens. In this example, the price is in Ether (ETH), and the token that is up for grabs is DENT. In most exchanges, it’s as simple as clicking 2 or 3 times to take an offer.

Detail of the take area

These offers are available to everyone on the exchange to take. If you decide that you like the price and amount of an offer, you can “take” that offer as long as your wallet is capable of paying for the total (if you’re buying), or capable of sending the amount (if you’re selling). Taking orders applies to both buying or selling. Here are the main advantages and disadvantages:

· You can take the offer immediately (+)

· You can’t choose the price that you buy or sell (-)

· You can’t increase the amount that is offered, but you CAN decrease the amount in some exchanges (+/-)

I reduced the amount from 24000 to just 240

So, for “take” orders, you are taking the price and amount that is offered. If you are in a situation where time is of the essence, or otherwise want an offer as soon as possible, you should take that offer. But if you want to set the terms of your deal, you may want to make the offer.