Live bitcoin price (BTC/USD)

What the spot number is and how it is set

The spot price is the current market price for one bitcoin in US dollars, and it is set by trading across many venues rather than by any single exchange. Aggregators and brokers blend quotes from several sources, so the number you see is a consensus view. The reference price on this site is around 77000.0, used as a starting point for the calculators rather than a live executable quote.

Because bitcoin trades on many exchanges at once, small differences appear between venues at any moment. That is normal and is one reason a single 'official' price does not exist. What matters for a South African trader is the price your own broker shows on the platform, because that is the price your order will actually meet.

Why the broker's price differs: the spread

Your broker's price differs from the reference because it quotes a bid and an ask, and the gap between them is the spread. You buy at the ask and sell at the bid, so the spread is a cost you pay on entry. The size of that spread depends on the broker, the instrument and market conditions, and it is not fixed.

The spread is not the only cost to understand. Holding a leveraged bitcoin position overnight can involve a financing charge, and the amount depends on the broker's terms and the direction of your position. Read the contract specifications on your platform rather than assuming a number, because costs change and vary by account type.

How to read the change and refresh

The change figure shows how far the current price has moved from a previous reference point, usually the prior close or the start of the session. A positive change means bitcoin is up over that window and a negative one means it is down. The refresh interval tells you how often the number updates, which matters because bitcoin can move quickly.

Do not treat a single refresh as a signal. Watch how the change behaves over several updates and compare it with the session's range. If the change is small but the range is wide, the market is choppy rather than trending, and that affects how you size a position and where you place a stop.

How this price feeds the calculators

The reference price feeds the calculators as a starting value, so you can estimate pip value, margin and profit or loss without typing a price from scratch. You can overwrite it with the live quote from your platform, and for any real trade you should, because the reference is a guide and not a fill price.

Using the reference for planning and the platform quote for execution keeps the two jobs separate. Plan the trade with the calculators, then confirm the actual bid and ask before you send the order. That habit avoids sizing a position on a price that has already moved.

Where This Page's BTC/USD Number Comes From and What Its Latency Means

The number shown here is an aggregated reference price for bitcoin against the US dollar, built from quotes drawn from several large spot venues and refreshed continuously. It is not a quote from FxPro and it is not the price your order will fill at. Its latency is the delay between the last trade on those venues and the moment the figure renders on your screen, which depends on your connection, the page's refresh cycle and how quickly each venue reports. Treat it as a live indicator of where the market is, not as an executable price.

Latency matters most when bitcoin is moving quickly. A reference price that lags the market by even a few seconds can show a level that no longer exists, so a limit order placed against it may fill somewhere else or not at all. The practical response is to check the broker's own bid and ask before you commit, because that is the number your order actually meets. For a South African trader funding in rand, the reference figure is a planning tool; the tradeable quote is the decision tool.

The reference price is stated in US dollars, so a rand-based reader is seeing two layers of movement: the bitcoin price itself and the USD/ZAR rate. A flat BTC/USD number can still mean a different rand value an hour later. That does not make the page wrong, but it does mean the figure answers 'what is bitcoin worth in dollars right now' rather than 'what will this cost me in rands'. Convert at the rate your bank or card applies when you fund, and remember that rate carries its own timing.

Why FxPro's Bitcoin Quote Differs From a Public Reference Price

A broker's quote differs from a public reference price because the broker is quoting the market it can actually trade in, not a composite of venues it has no access to. FxPro prices BTC/USD through its own liquidity arrangements, and the quote it shows already reflects the cost of doing business with you: the spread, any hedging it must do, and the risk it carries while your position is open. The reference price on this page has none of that built in, so the two will rarely match to the cent.

The gap is not a malfunction and it is not evidence of a bad deal. It is the difference between an indicative number and a firm one. A reference price tells you where bitcoin is trading generally; a broker quote tells you where you can enter or exit with that specific counterparty at that specific moment. When you compare the two, compare them at the same instant, because a few seconds of drift on bitcoin can easily exceed the difference you are trying to measure.

For South African readers there is a further layer: FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL is the entity that serves this market, and the quote you see depends on the account you hold with it. FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence in South Africa — check which entity your own account is opened with. The pricing terms attached to your account, not the public reference figure, determine what you actually pay to trade.

Bid, Ask and the Gap Between Them on a BTC/USD Quote

Every tradeable bitcoin quote has two sides: the bid, which is the price at which you can sell, and the ask, which is the price at which you can buy. The gap between them is the spread, and it is the first cost you meet on any trade. On a 1-lot BTC/USD position one pip equals 1.0, so the spread measured in dollars is also the spread measured in pips. You buy at the ask and sell at the bid, which means a new position starts slightly behind the mid-price.

The size of that gap is not fixed. It depends on the instrument, the time of day, the liquidity available and the volatility at that moment, and it can widen sharply when bitcoin moves fast or when the market is thin. That is why this page does not quote you a spread number: any figure would be a snapshot that is wrong by the time you read it. What you can rely on is the structure — bid below ask, the difference being your entry cost — and the broker's live quote as the source of truth.

Reading the two sides correctly changes how you plan a trade. If you intend to buy, the ask is your entry and the bid is your exit, so the spread is a hurdle you must clear before the position shows a gain. On a 0.10-lot position the same per-unit spread applies, scaled to one-tenth of a lot. This is why short-term bitcoin trading demands movement larger than the gap, and why the gap itself, not the headline price, is the number worth watching before you click.

What a Stale Bitcoin Quote Looks Like and the Right Response

A stale quote looks like a price that has stopped moving while the market has not, or a bid and ask that sit unusually far apart with no trades printing between them. On a bitcoin chart the tell is often a flat line during a period when other sources are clearly moving, or a quote that fails to update after a refresh. It can also appear as a price that jumps discontinuously when it finally catches up, leaving a visible gap on the chart.

The cause is usually technical rather than market-driven: a dropped connection, a frozen feed, a platform that has lost its data link, or a venue that has paused reporting. It is not a signal to trade and it is not a discount. Acting on a stale quote is how traders end up with fills far from where they expected. The correct response is to stop, refresh the platform, check a second independent source, and only then decide whether the market is genuinely where the screen says.

If you are already in a position when a quote goes stale, the safe assumption is that your stop and limit orders are still live at the broker even if your screen is not updating. Do not place new orders against a frozen price. Reconnect, confirm the live bid and ask, and if the platform will not refresh, contact the broker rather than guessing. On bitcoin, where a few minutes can move the price materially, a stale screen is a reason to wait, not a reason to improvise.

How Often This Figure Refreshes and How to Tell It Has Fallen Behind

This page refreshes on a short cycle, pulling the latest aggregated reference price so the figure you see is close to real time, but it is still a snapshot rather than a streaming tick. The exact interval depends on the page and your connection, and no refresh rate can eliminate the delay between a trade on a venue and its appearance here. The honest way to use it is as a frequently updated indicator, not as a substitute for the broker's live quote when you are about to trade.

You can tell the figure has fallen behind by comparing it with the broker's platform at the same moment. If FxPro's bid and ask are moving while this page sits still, the page is lagging. A second check is consistency: if the change figure and the price both freeze across several refreshes while news or other markets are active, treat the number as out of date. A large, sudden jump after a flat period is the same warning in reverse.

Falling behind is normal and mostly harmless for planning, but it is costly if you treat the page as an execution price. The rule is simple: use this figure to understand where bitcoin is, and use the broker's quote to decide where you enter. For a rand-funded account, also remember that the USD/ZAR conversion your bank applies has its own timing, so the rand cost of a position can differ from a quick mental conversion of the number on screen.

Spot Reference Versus the Broker's Tradeable Quote: Which One Your Order Meets

A spot reference is an indicative price for bitcoin in the wider market; the broker's tradeable quote is the price at which FxPro will actually transact with you. Your order fills against the broker's quote, never against the reference on this page. That distinction is the single most important thing to carry from this page into a trade. The reference tells you the neighbourhood; the broker's bid and ask tell you the exact door you are walking through.

The two can differ by more than a few cents when volatility is high, because the broker's quote carries the spread and reflects the liquidity it can access at that moment. On a 1-lot BTC/USD position, where one pip is 1.0, a difference of even a few dollars between reference and tradeable price is a real cost on entry. This is why checking the live quote immediately before you trade is not bureaucracy; it is the step that tells you what the trade actually costs.

For South African traders, the entity matters as much as the price. FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL serves this market, and FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and an FxPro entity holds an FSCA licence in South Africa — check which entity your own account is opened with. The tradeable quote you meet is the one attached to your account, so confirm the entity and the platform quote together before sizing a position.