What Is Slippage?

When you trade on a decentralized exchange, the price you see isn't always the price you get. Slippage occurs when the trade executes at a different price than expected.

• Low liquidity: If the pool has little liquidity, even a small trade moves the price significantly. A $1,000 trade in a $10,000 pool creates ~10% slippage; the same trade in a $1,000,000 pool creates ~0.1% slippage.
• Price movement: Between when you submit a transaction and when it's confirmed, other trades may change the price. On Ethereum (12-second blocks) this is more common than on Solana (sub-second).

Slippage tolerance settings let you control the maximum acceptable price deviation. Setting 1% slippage means you'll accept up to 1% worse price than quoted; if the price moves more, the trade reverts (fails).

For new token launches, slippage matters because initial liquidity pools are often small. More liquidity = less slippage = better trading experience for your holders.