What is placement price protection?

Bitvavo uses placement price protection to stop a limit order from being placed at a price far from where an asset is currently trading. If the price you enter is too far off, your order is not submitted and we ask you to move it closer. This article explains why the check exists and what to do when you see it.

A limit order does not fill right away. It waits in the order book until the market reaches your price. That makes a mistyped price easy to miss. The order does not fail, but it waits at a price you never meant to set, and it may fill much later at a price you would never have chosen. Placement price protection catches this at the moment you place your order, while it is still easy to fix.

What placement price protection does

When you place a limit order, we check that the price you set is not too far from where the asset is currently trading.

The check uses the midpoint between the best buy price and the best sell price on the Bitvavo order book at the moment you place your order. Your price has to sit within a set range on either side of that midpoint. The range differs per market.

Why it exists

It mainly exists to catch input errors before they become a live order. An accidental extra zero would otherwise leave an order resting far from the market, where it could fill at a price you never intended.

When it applies

This protection applies to limit orders at the moment you place them.

Because the range is calculated from the midpoint at that exact moment, it moves as the market moves. A price that is inside the range now can be outside it a few minutes later.

What happens if it is triggered

Your order is not placed. We will ask you to move your price closer to the midpoint before you can continue. Nothing reaches the order book, so there is nothing to cancel.

An example

Say the best buy price for an asset is €9.95 and the best sell price is €10.05, putting the midpoint at €10.00. For this market, that allows a limit price between €9.09 and €11.00.

A limit buy at €10.50 is accepted. A limit buy at €100.00, from an accidental extra zero, is not. It is well outside the range, so we ask you to correct it before the order is placed.

What you can do

Move your price closer to the midpoint until it is accepted. If you want to place an order well away from the current market, you will need to wait until the market moves closer to the price you have in mind.