Interpreting a Cryptocurrency Trading Pair

As mentioned previously, a trading pair represents two different cryptocurrencies being traded against each other. What this means is, an individual must sell one cryptocurrency in order to by another. Using the ETH/BTC trading pair as an example, I would need to sell my bitcoin in order to buy ether.

As shown below, the cryptocurrency on the right-hand side of the forward slash is known as the quote currency (BTC), this is the currency you must already own in order to buy the cryptocurrency on the left of the forward slash, i.e. the base currency (ETH).