The buy and sell orders that are made on a particular market in conventional financial markets are referred to as bids and asks. Asks are the selling prices established by individuals who have the asset and are looking to sell it, whereas bids are offers made in a base currency for a unit of the trading item. The asking price is thus the lowest price at which a person would be willing to sell their item or the lowest sum they would like to be compensated for the asset they are selling. When a trader uses a market order, the highest bid and the lowest asking price are the first to fill in the exchange's order book, thus a selling market order will match the highest bid and a buying market order will match the lowest asking price. The spread of the market is defined as the difference between the lowest asking price and the highest bid price. Because there are more orders on the buying and selling sides (more market participants who are prepared to enter an order into the order book), a liquid market typically has a lower spread. An person can specify an asking price when placing a limit sell order, but if their price is not the lowest, their order won't be completed first. It will merely increase the size of the asset's current order book. When utilizing a market order, however, traders cannot directly specify the asking price; instead, their order will be filled at the best price at the time (which will match the highest bid in the order book).