Slippage
The difference between the expected fill price of a trade and the actual fill price, driven by liquidity depth and price movement between order submission and execution.
In detail
Slippage is the gap between the price you expected when you clicked buy and the price you actually got when the transaction confirmed. On Solana's fast-moving memecoin markets, slippage can be significant even within a single slot. Every trading platform asks for a slippage tolerance — the maximum gap you'll accept before the trade aborts. For bonding-curve tokens and low-liquidity pairs, 5–10% tolerance is normal; for major liquid pairs, 0.5–2% is typical. Setting slippage too tight causes failed trades; too loose invites sandwich attacks and bad fills. Copy-trade bots should enforce per-wallet slippage rules that match the style of the target wallet.
Key points
- Gap between expected and actual fill price
- Tolerance setting = max acceptable gap before abort
- Tight slippage = more failed trades; loose = worse fills
- Bonding-curve / memecoin: 5–10% typical
- Major liquid pairs: 0.5–2% typical