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What Is Slippage in Crypto? Definition & How to Limit It
Slippage is the difference between the price you expected when you placed a trade and the price at which it actually executes, usually caused by market movement or thin liquidity.
Key takeaways
- Slippage grows when your trade is large relative to available liquidity, or the price moves before execution.
- Most swaps let you set a slippage tolerance — the maximum worse price you'll accept.
- Too tight a tolerance can make trades fail; too loose can let bots or bad prices hurt you.
- It's separate from network fees and any swap service fees.
What causes slippage
Two things: price movement between you clicking "swap" and the trade executing, and price impact — your own trade moving the price because the pool or order book doesn't have enough liquidity at the quoted price. Small trades in deep markets barely slip; large trades in thin markets can slip a lot.
Slippage tolerance
Swap interfaces let you set the maximum slippage you'll tolerate, for example 0.5% or 1%. If the price moves further than that before execution, the trade reverts instead of filling at a worse price.
- Too low: trades on volatile or thin pairs fail repeatedly
- Too high: you may accept a bad fill, and you become a target for bots that profit from loose limits
How to limit it
- Trade in liquid pairs
- Split large trades into smaller ones
- Use a reasonable tolerance — tight for stable pairs, wider for volatile ones
- Check the quoted rate and any price-impact warning before confirming
Slippage vs fees
Slippage is not a fee — it's price movement or impact. You also pay network fees and sometimes a service fee. Judge a swap by the total you receive versus what you gave.
Positive slippage
Occasionally the price moves in your favour and you receive more than quoted. It's the same effect in the other direction.
Reading a swap quote
A good quote shows the rate, the minimum you will receive after slippage, and the expected price impact. If the price impact is more than a small fraction of a percent on a liquid pair, that is the market telling you your trade is large for the pool. Splitting it into several swaps, or choosing a deeper route, usually gives a better overall result than raising your tolerance.
Example
You quote a swap giving 100 tokens for 1 SOL with a 1% tolerance. Just before it executes the price moves 0.6% against you and you receive 99.4 tokens — within tolerance, so it fills. At a 0.5% tolerance, it would have reverted.
Put it into practice
Swap with the rate in front of you
Scrypt Wallet swaps Solana tokens through Jupiter and Ethereum tokens through Uniswap, and shows the live rate before you confirm — so you can judge the trade instead of guessing.
Try a swap in Scrypt Wallet Get Scrypt for AndroidFrequently asked questions
What is a good slippage setting?
It depends on the pair. Stable or deep pairs can use a low tolerance (a fraction of a percent); volatile or thin ones may need more, at the cost of a worse potential fill.
Why did my swap fail with a slippage error?
The price moved beyond your tolerance before execution, so the transaction reverted to protect you.
Does Scrypt Wallet show the rate before I swap?
Yes. Scrypt Wallet shows a live rate before you confirm a swap.
Written by the Scrypt Wallet team · Updated 2026-09-29. General education, not financial, tax or legal advice.