Execution Quality Is The Missing Metric In Bitcoin And Ethereum Markets

Transaction cost analysis (TCA) has long been an important tool in equity trading, exposing hidden costs and narrowing the gap between expected and actual prices. As crypto matures and begins to resemble traditional markets, transactions carry fees on every buy or sell — yet execution costs in crypto are not analyzed systematically.

That opacity makes adopting TCA urgent to preserve market trust. To the untrained eye, major crypto pairs look liquid: order books appear deep and quoted spreads competitive. Final execution prices, however, often deviate from expectations because of slippage. For example, a planned purchase of 1 Bitcoin at $90,000 that fills at $90,900 produces $900 of slippage, or 1% of the trade.

TCA can break down true execution costs by showing bid-ask spreads, market impact and order-routing fees. Several factors make TCA harder in crypto. Prices change every millisecond and trading runs 24/7, liquidity can be low, and activity is fragmented across many exchanges that may experience outages or limited depth.

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